mm 


^"f'i  ■ 


JEAN  OF  THE 
LAZY  A 


Jill 
>  1  :>  I 


I    DON  T    THINK    THERE  S    MUCH    CONCERNING    YOU    THAT    I 
don't   know."      Frontispiece.     See  page  301. 


JEAN  OF  THE 
LAZY  A 


BY 


Author  of  **The  Ranch  at  the  Wolverin^y""  ^* Lonesome 
Landf^^  *^Good  IndiaUy"  etc. 


^    B.  M.  BOWER 


t-- 


WITH   FRONTISPIECE    BY 
>  DOUGLAS  DUBR. 


1  • »/  J  J  J     '  .> 


NONiREFERT 


paWVAD'QHS 


BOSTON 

LITTLE,  BROWN,  AND  COMPANY 

1915 


Copyright,  1915, 
By  Little,  Brown,  and  Company. 


,,AU  rights ^regenied^  :    ; 


Published,  October,  1915 


THE   COLONIAL    PRESS 
C.    H.    SIMONDS   CO.,    BOSTON,    U.  S.  A. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTEE  PAGE 

I    How  Trouble  Came  to  the  Lazy  A 1 

II  Concerning  Lite  and  a  Few  Footprints  ....     17 

III  What  a  Man's  Good  Name  Is  Worth   ....     32 

IV  Jean 42 

V    Jean  Rides  into  a  Small  Adventure 63 

VI    And  the  Villain  Pursued  Her 65 

VII    Robert  Grant  Burns  Gets  Help 72 

VIII  Jean  Spoils  Something  .........     86 

IX    A  Man-Sized  Job  fob  Jean 104 

X    Jean  Learns  What  Fear  Is  Like 120 

XI    Lite's  Pupil  Demonstrates 127 

XII    To  "  Double  "  for  Muriel  Gay .   142 

XIII  Pictures  and  Plans  and  Mysterious  Footsteps   .   161 

XIV  Punch  Versus  Prestige 177 

XV  A  Leading  Lady  They  Would  Make  of  Jean  .      .190 

XVI  Fob  Once  at  Least  Lite  Had  His  Way  ....  202 

XVII  "Why  Don't  You  Give  Them  Something  Real?"  .  212 

XVIII    A  New  Kind  of  Picture 225 

XIX    In  Los  Angeles 240 

XX    Chance  Takes  a  Hand 256 

XXI  Jean  Believes  That  She  Takes  Matters  into  Her 

Own  Hands 269 

XXII  Jean  Meets  One  Crisis  and  Confronts  Another  279 

XXIII  A  Little  Enlightenment 295 

XXIV  The  Letter  in  the  Chaps 305 

XXV    Lite  Comes  Out  of  the  Background 312 

XXVI  How  Happiness  Returned  to  the  Lazy  A  .      .      .  320 


Mi851 


[Cu. 


4?^^'-' 


Jean  of  the  Lazy  A 

CHAPTEK  I 

HOW    TROUBLE    CAME    TO    THE    LAZY    A 

WITHOUT  going  into  a  deep,  psychological  dis- 
cussion of  the  elements  in  men's  souls  that  breed 
events,  we  may  say  with  truth  that  the  Lazy  A  ranch 
was  as  other  ranches  in  the  smooth  tenor  of  its  life 
until  one  day  in  June,  when  the  finger  of  fate  wrote 
bold  and  black  across  the  face  of  it  the  word  that  blotted 
out  prosperity,  content,  warm  family  ties, —  all  those 
things  that  go  to  make  life  worth  while. 

Jean,  sixteen  and  a  range  girl  to  the  last  fiber  of  her 
being,  had  gotten  up  early  that  morning  and  had  washed 
the  dishes  and  swept,  and  had  shaken  the  rugs  of  the 
little  living-room  most  vigorously.  On  her  knees,  with 
stiff  brush  and  much  soapy  water,  she  had  scrubbed  the 
kitchen  floor  until  the  boards  dried  white  as  kitchen 
floors  may  be.  She  had  baked  a  loaf  of  gingerbread, 
that  came  from  the  oven  with  a  most  delectable  odor, 


2  .      J.IlAJf :  QF   THE    LAZY   A 

aii3  had  wrapped*  it  .in  a  clean  cloth  to  cool  on  the 
/\kit(^eh*'t^md.,'Jier  dsid  and  Lite  Avery  would  show 
cause  for  the  baking  of  it  when  they  sat  down,  fresh 
washed  and  ravenous,  to  their  supper  that  evening.  I 
mention  Jean  and  her  scrubbed  kitchen  and  the  ginger- 
bread by  way  of  proving  how  the  Lazy  A  went  un- 
warned and  unsuspecting  to  the  very  brink  of  its  dis- 
aster. 

Lite  Avery,  long  and  lean  and  silently  content  with 
life,  had  ridden  away  with  a  package  of  sandwiches, 
after  a  full  breakfast  and  a  smile  from  the  slim  girl 
who  cooked  it,  upon  the  business  of  the  day;  which 
happened  to  be  a  long  ride  with  one  of  the  Bar  ]*»3'oth- 
ing  riders,  down  in  the  breaks  along  the  river.  Jean's 
father,  big  Aleck  Douglas,  had  saddled  and  ridden  away 
alone  upon  business  of  his  own.  And  presently,  in  mid- 
forenoon,  Jean  closed  the  kitchen  door  upon  an  im- 
maculately clean  house  filled  with  the  warm,  fragrant 
odor  of  her  baking,  and  in  fresh  shirt  waist  and  her 
best  riding-skirt  and  Stetson,  went  whistling  away  down 
the  path  to  the  stable,  and  saddled  Pard,  the  brown  colt 
that  Lite  had  broken  to  the  saddle  for  her  that  spring. 
In  ten  minutes  or  so  she  went  galloping  down  the  coulee 
and  out  upon  the  trail  to  town,  which  was  fifteen  miles 
away  and  held  a  chum  of  hers. 

So  Lazy  A  coulee  was  left  at  peace,  with  scratching 


HOW   TROUBLE    CAME  8 

hens  busy  with  the  feeding  of  half-feathered  chicks, 
and  a  rooster  that  crowed  from  the  corral  fence  seven 
times  without  stopping  to  take  breath.  In  the  big 
corral  a  sorrel  mare  nosed  her  colt  and  nibbled  ab- 
stractedly at  the  pile  of  hay  in  one  corner,  while  the 
colt  wabbled  aimlessly  up  and  sniffed  curiously  and  then 
turned  to  inspect  the  rails  that  felt  so  queer  and  hard 
when  he  rubbed  his  nose  against  them.  The  sun  was 
warm,  and  cloud-shadows  drifted  lazily  across  the  coulee 
with  the  breeze  that  blew  from  the  west.  You  never 
would  dream  that  this  was  the  last  day, —  the  last  few 
hours  even, —  when  the  Lazy  A  would  be  the  untroubled 
home  of  three  persons  of  whose  lives  it  formed  so 
great  a  part. 

At  noon  the  hens  were  hovering  their  chickens  in  the 
shade  of  the  mower  which  Lite  was  overhauling  during 
his  spare  time,  getting  it  ready  for  the  hay  that  was 
growing  apace  out  there  in  the  broad  mouth  of  the 
coulee.  The  rooster  was  wallowing  luxuriously  in  a 
dusty  spot  in  the  corral.  The  young  colt  lay  stretched 
out  on  the  flat  of  its  side  in  the  sun,  sound  asleep.  The 
sorrel  mare  lay  beside  it,  asleep  also,  with  her  head 
thrown  up  against  her  shoulder.  Somewhere  in  a  shed 
a  calf  was  bawling  in  bored  lonesomeness  away  from  its 
mother  feeding  down  the  pasture.  And  over  all  the 
coulee  and  the  buildings  nestled  against  the  bluff  at 


4         JEAN    OF   THE    LAZY   A 

its  upper  end  was  spread  that  atmosphere  of  homey 
comfort  and  sheltered  calm  which  surrounds  always  a 
home  that  is  happy. 

Lite  Avery,  riding  toward  home  just  when  the  shad- 
ows were  beginning  to  grow  long  behind  him,  won- 
dered if  Jean  would  be  back  by  the  time  he  reached  the 
ranch.  He  hoped  so,  with  a  vague  distaste  at  finding 
the  place  empty  of  her  cheerful  presence.  He  looked 
at  his  watch ;  it  was  nearly  four  o'clock.  She  ought  to 
be  home  by  half -past  four  or  ^Ye,  anyway.  He  glanced 
sidelong  at  Jim  and  quietly  slackened  his  pace  a  little. 
Jim  was  telling  one  of  those  long,  rambling  tales  of 
the  little  happenings  of  a  narrow  life,  and  Lite  was 
supposed  to  be  listening  instead  of  thinking  about  when 
Jea^i  would  return  home.  Jim  believed  he  was  listen- 
ing, and  drove  home  the  point  of  his  story. 

"  Yes,  sir,  them's  his  very  words.  Art  Osgood  heard 
him.  He'll  do  it,  too,  take  it  from  me ;  Crof ty  is  shore 
riled  up  this  time." 

"Always  is,"  Lite  observed,  without  paying  much 
attention.  "  I'll  turn  off  here,  Jim,  and  cut  across. 
Got  some  work  I  want  to  get  done  yet  to-night.  So 
long." 

He  swung  away  from  his  companion,  whose  trail  to 
the  Bar  l^othing  led  him  straight  west,  passing  the  Lazy 
A  coulee  well  out  from,  its  mouth,  toward  the  river. 


HOW    TROUBLE    CAME  5 

Lite  could  save  a  half  mile  by  bearing  off  to  the  north 
and  entering  the  coulee  at  the  eastern  side  and  riding 
up  through  the  pasture.  He  wanted  to  see  how  the 
grass  was  coming  on,  anyway.  The  last  rain  should 
have  given  it  a  fresh  start. 

He  was  in  no  great  hurry,  after  all;  he  had  merely 
been  bored  with  Jim's  company  and  wanted  to  go  on 
alone.  And  then  he  could  get  the  fire  started  for 
Jean.  Lite's  life  was  running  very  smoothly  indeed; 
so  smoothly  that  his  thoughts  occupied  themselves 
largely  with  little  things,  save  when  they  concerned 
themselves  with  Jean,  who  had  been  away  to  school  for 
a  year  and  had  graduated  from  "  high/'  as  she  called  it, 
just  a  couple  of  weeks  ago,  and  had  come  home  to  keep 
house  for  dad  and  Lite.  The  novelty  of  her  presence 
on  the  ranch  was  still  fresh  enough  to  fill  his  thoughts 
with  her  slim  attractiveness.  Town  hadn't  spoiled  her, 
he  thought  glowingly.  She  was  the  same  good  little 
pal, —  only  she  was  growing  up  pretty  fast,  now.  She 
was  a  young  lady  already. 

So,  thinking  of  her  with  the  brightening  of  spirits 
which  is  the  first  symptom  of  the  world-old  emotion 
called  love,  Lite  rounded  the  eastern  arm  of  the  bluff 
and  came  within  sight  of  the  coulee  spread  before  him, 
shaped  like  the  half  of  a  huge  platter  with  a  high  rim  of 
bluff  on  three  sides* 


6         JEAN   OF    THE   LAZY   A 

His  first  involimtai-y  glance  was  towards  the  house, 
and  there  was  unacknowledged  expectancy  in  his  eyes. 
But  he  did  not  see  Jean,  nor  any  sign  that  she  had  re- 
turned. Instead,  he  saw  her  father  just  mounting  in 
haste  at  the  corral.  He  saw  him  swing  his  quirt  down 
along  the  side  of  his  horse  and  go  tearing  down  the 
trail,  leaving  the  wire  gate  flat  upon  the  ground  behind 
him, —  which  was  against  all  precedent. 

Lite  quickened  his  own  pace.  He  did  not  know  why 
big  Aleck  Douglas  should  be  hitting  that  pace  out  of 
the  coulee,  but  since  Aleck's  pace  was  habitually  un- 
hurried, the  inference  was  plain  enough  that  there  was 
some  urgent  need  for  haste.  Lite  let  down  the  rails  of 
the  barred  gate  from  the  meadow  into  the  pasture, 
mounted,  and  went  galloping  across  the  uneven  sod. 
His  first  anxious  thought  was  for  the  girl.  Had  some- 
thing happened  to  her  ? 

At  the  stable  he  looked  and  saw  that  Jean's  saddle  did 
not  hang  on  its  accustomed  peg  inside  the  door,  and  he 
breathed  freer.  She  could  not  have  returned,  then.  He 
turned  his  own  horse  inside  without  taking  of!  the  sad- 
dle, and  looked  around  him  puzzled.  Nothing  seemed 
wrong  about  the  place.  The  sorrel  mare  stood  placidly 
switching  at  the  flies  and  suckling  her  gangling  colt  in 
the  shady  corner  of  the  corral,  and  the  chickens  were 
pecking  desultorily  about  their  feeding-ground  in  ex- 


HOW    TROUBLE    CAME  7 

pectation  of  the  wheat  that  Jean  or  Lite  would  fling  to 
them  later  on.     Not  a  thing  seemed  unusual. 

Yet  Lite  stood  just  outside  the  stable,  and  the  sensa- 
tion that  something  was  wrong  grew  keener.  He  was 
not  a  nervous  person, —  you  would  have  laughed  at  the 
idea  of  nerves  in  connection  with  Lite  Avery.  He  felt 
that  something  was  wrong,  just  the  same.  It  was  not 
altogether  the  hurried  departure  of  Aleck  Douglas, 
either,  that  made  him  feel  so.  He  looked  at  the  house 
setting  hack  there  close  to  the  bluff  just  where  it  began 
to  curve  rudely  out  from  the  narrowest  part  of  the 
coulee.  It  was  still  and  quiet,  with  closed  windows  and 
doors  to  tell  there  was  no  one  at  home.  And  yet,  to 
Lite  its  very  silence  seemed  sinister. 

Wolves  were  many,  down  in  the  breaks  along  the 
river  that  spring;  and  the  coyotes  w^ere  an  ever-present 
evil  among  the  calves,  so  that  Lite  never  rode  abroad 
without  his  six-shooter.  He  reached  back  and  loosened 
it  in  the  holster  before  he  started  up  the  sandy  path 
to  the  house;  and  if  you  knew  the  Lazy  A  ranch  as 
well  as  Lite  knew  it,  from  six  years  of  calling  it  home, 
you  would  wonder  at  that  action  of  his,  which  was  in- 
stinctive and  wholly  unconscious. 

So  he  went  up  through  the  sunshine  of  late  afternoon 
that  sent  his  shadow  a  full  rod  before  him,  and  he 
stepped  upon  the  narrow  platform  before  the  kitchen 


8  JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

door,  and  stood  there  a  minute  listening.  He  heard 
the  mantel  clock  in  the  living-room  ticking  with  the 
resonance  given  by  a  room  empty  of  all  other  sound. 
Because  his  ears  were  keen,  he  heard  also  the  little 
alarm  clock  in  the  kitchen  tick-tick-tick  on  the  shelf 
behind  the  stove  where  Jean  kept  it  daytimes. 

Peaceful  enough,  for  all  the  silence ;  yet  Lite  reached 
back  and  laid  his  fingers  upon  the  smooth  butt  of  his 
six-shooter  and  opened  the  door  with  his  left  hand, 
which  was  more  or  less  awkward.  He  pushed  the  door 
open  and  stepped  inside.  Then  for  a  full  minute  he 
did  not  move. 

On  the  floor  that  Jean  had  scrubbed  till  it  was  so 
white,  a  man  lay  dead,  stretched  upon  his  back.  His 
eyes  stared  vacantly  straight  up  at  the  ceiling,  where  a 
single  cobweb  which  Jean  had  not  noticed  swayed  in 
the  air-current  Lite  set  in  motion  with  the  opening  of 
the  door.  On  the  floor,  where  it  had  dropped  from  his 
hand  perhaps  when  he  fell,  a  small  square  piece  of 
gingerbread  lay,  crumbled  around  the  edges.  Tragic 
halo  around  his  head,  a  pool  of  blood  was  turning  brown 
and  clotted.  Lite  shivered  a  little  while  he  stared  down 
at  him. 

In  a  minute  he  lifted  his  eyes  from  the  figure 
and  looked  around  the  small  room.  The  stove  shone 
black  in  the  sunlight  which  the  open  door  let  in.     On 


HOW    TROUBLE    CAME  9 

the  table,  covered  with  white  oilcloth,  the  loaf  of  ginger- 
bread lay  uncovered,  and  beside  it  lay  a  knife  used  to 
cut  off  the  piece  which  the  man  on  the  floor  had  not 
eaten  before  he  died.  iSTothing  else  was  disturbed. 
ISTothing  else  seemed  in  the  least  to  bear  any  evidence 
of  what  had  taken  place. 

Litems  thoughts  turned  in  spite  of  him  to  the  man 
who  had  ridden  from  the  coulee  as  though  fiends  had 
pursued.  The  conclusion  was  obvious,  yet  Lite  loyally 
rejected  it  in  the  face  of  reason.  Eeason  told  him 
that  there  went  the  slayer.  For  this  dead  man  was 
what  was  left  of  Johnny  Croft,  the  Crofty  of  whom 
Jim  had  gossiped  not  more  than  half  an  hour  before. 
And  the  gossip  had  been  of  threats  which  Johnny  Croft 
had  made  against  the  two  Douglas  brothers, —  big 
Aleck,  of  the  Lazy  A,  and  Carl,  of  the  Bar  INTothing 
ranch  adjoining. 

Suicide  it  could  scarcely  be,  for  Crofty  was  the  type 
of  man  who  would  cling  to  life;  besides,  his  gun  was 
in  its  holster,  and  a  man  would  hardly  have  the  strength 
or  the  desire  to  put  away  his  gun  after  he  has  shot 
himself  under  one  eye.  Death  had  undoubtedly  been 
immediate.  Lite  thought  of  these  things  while  he  stood 
there  just  inside  the  door.  Then  he  turned  slowly  and 
went  outside,  and  stood  hesitating  upon  the  porch.  He 
did  not  quite  know  what  he  ought  to  do  about  it,  and 


10       JEAN   OF   THE    LAZY   A 

so  he  did  not  mean  to  be  in  too  great  a  hurry  to  do 
anything;  that  was  Lite's  habit,  and  he  had  always 
found  that  it  served  him  well. 

If  the  rider  had  been  fleeing  from  his  crime,  as  was 
likely,  Lite  had  no  mind  to  raise  at  once  the  hue  and 
cry.  An  hour  or  two  could  make  no  difference  to  the 
dead  man, —  and  you  must  remember  that  Lite  had  for 
six  years  called  this  place  his  home,  and  big  Aleck 
Douglas  his  friend  as  well  as  the  man  who  paid  him 
wages  for  the  work  he  did.  He  was  half  tempted  to 
ride  away  and  say  nothing  for  a  while.  He  could  let 
it  appear  that  he  had  not  been  at  the  house  at  all  and  so 
had  not  discovered  the  crime  when  he  did.  That  would 
give  Aleck  Douglas  more  time  to  get  away.  But  there 
was  Jean,  due  at  any  moment  now.  He  could  not  go 
away  and  let  Jean  discover  that  gruesome  thing  on  the 
kitchen  floor.  He  could  not  take  it  up  and  hide  it  away 
somewhere ;  he  could  not  do  anything,  it  seemed  to  him, 
but  just  wait. 

He  went  slowly  down  the  path  to  the  stable,  his  chin 
on  his  chest,  his  mind  grappling  with  the  tragedy  and 
with  the  problem  of  how  best  he  might  lighten  the  blow 
that  had  fallen  upon  the  ranch.  It  was  unreal, —  it 
was  unthinkable, —  that  Aleck  Douglas,  the  man  who 
met  but  friendly  glances,  ride  where  he  might,  had 
done  this  thing.     And  yet  there  was  nothing  else  to  be- 


HOW    TROUBLE    CAME         11 

lieve.  Johnny  Croft  had  worked  here  on  the  ranch  for 
a  couple  of  months,  off  and  on.  He  had  not  been  stead- 
ily employed,  and  he  had  been  paid  by  the  day  instead 
of  by  the  month  as  was  the  custom.  He  had  worked 
also  for  Carl  Douglas  at  the  Bar  Nothing;  back  and 
forth,  for  one  or  the  other  as  work  pressed.  He  was 
too  erratic  to  be  depended  upon  except  from  day  to 
day ;  too  prone  to  saddle  his  horse  and  ride  to  town  and 
forget  to  return  for  a  day  or  two  days  or  a  week,  as 
the  mood  seized  him  or  his  money  held  out. 

Lite  knew  that  there  had  been  some  dispute  when  he 
had  left;  he  had  claimed  payment  for  more  days  than 
he  had  worked.  Aleck  was  a  just  man  who  paid  hon- 
estly what  he  owed ;  he  was  also  known  to  be  "  close- 
fisted. '^  He  would  pay  what  he  owed  and  not  a  nickel 
more, —  hence  the  dispute.  Johnny  had  gone  away 
seeming  satisfied  that  his  own  figures  were  wrong,  but 
later  on  he  had  quarreled  with  Carl  over  wages  and 
other  things.  Carl  had  a  bad  temper  that  sometimes 
got  beyond  his  control,  and  he  had  ordered  Johnny  off 
the  ranch.  This  was  part  of  the  long,  full-detailed 
story  Jim  had  been  telling.  Johnny  had  left,  and  he 
had  talked  about  the  Douglas  brothers  to  any  one  who 
would  listen.  He  had  said  they  were  crooked,  both  of 
them,  and  would  cheat  a  working-man  out  of  his  pay. 
He  had  come  back,  evidently,  to  renew  the  argument 


12        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

with  Aleck.  With  the  easy  ways  of  ranch  people,  he 
had  gone  inside  when  he  found  no  one  at  home, — 
hungry,  probably,  and  not  at  all  backward  about  help- 
ing himself  to  whatever  appealed  to  his  appetite.  That 
was  Johnny's  way, —  a  way  that  went  unquestioned, 
since  he  had  lived  there  long  enough  to  feel  at  home. 
Lite  remembered  with  an  odd  feeling  of  pity  how 
Johnny  had  praised  the  first  gingerbread  which  Jean 
had  baked,  the  day  after  her  arrival;  and  how  he  had 
eaten  three  pieces  and  had  made  Jean's  cheeks  burn 
with  confusion  at  his  bold  flattery. 

He  had  come  back,  and  he  had  helped  himself  to  the 
gingerbread.  And  then  he  had  been  shot  down.  He 
w^as  lying  in  there  now,  just  as  he  had  fallen,  and  his 
blood  was  staining  deep  the  fresh-scrubbed  floor.  And 
Jean  would  be  coming  home  soon.  Lite  thought  it  would 
be  better  if  he  rode  out  to  meet  her,  and  told  her  what 
had  happened,  so  that  she  need  not  come  upon  it  un- 
prepared. There  was  nothing  else  that  he  could  bring 
himseK  to  do,  and  his  mood  demanded  action  of  some 
sort ;  one  could  not  sit  down  at  peace "  with  a  fresh 
tragedy  like  that  hanging  over  the  place. 

He  had  reached  the  stable  when  a  horse  walked  out 
from  behind  the  hay  corral  and  stopped,  eyeing  him 
curiously.  It  was  Johnny's  horse.  Even  as  improvi- 
dent a  cowpuncher  as  Johnny  Croft  had  been  likes  to 


HOW    TROUBLE    CAME  13 

own  a  "  private  "  horse, —  one  that  is  his  own  and  can 
be  ridden  when  and  where  the  owner  chooses.  Lite 
turned  and  went  over  to  it,  caught  it  by  the  dragging 
bridle-reins,  and  led  it  into  an  empty  stall.  He  did 
not  know  whether  he  ought  to  unsaddle  it  or  leave  it  as 
it  was ;  but  on  second  thought,  he  loosened  the  cinch  in 
kindness  to  the  animal,  and  took  off  its  bridle,  so  that 
it  could  eat  without  being  hampered  by  the  bit.  Lite 
was  too  thorough  a  horseman  not  to  be  thoughtful  of 
an  animal's  comfort. 

He  led  his  own  horse  out,  and  then  he  stopped  ab- 
ruptly. For  Pard  stood  in  front  of  the  kitchen  door, 
and  Jean  was  untying  a  package  or  two  from  the  saddle. 
He  opened  his  mouth  to  call  to  her ;  he  started  forward ; 
but  he  was  too  late  to  prevent  what  happened.  Before 
his  throat  had  made  a  sound,  Jean  turned  with  the 
packages  in  the  hollow  of  her  arm  and  stepped  upon  the 
platform  w^ith  that  springy  haste  of  movement  which 
belongs  to  health  and  youth  and  happiness;  and  before 
he  had  taken  more  than  the  first  step  away  from  his 
horse,  she  had  opened  the  kitchen  door. 

Lite  ran,  then.  He  did  not  call  to  her.  What  was 
the  use?  She  had  seen.  She  had  dropped  her  pack- 
ages, and  turned  and  ran  to  meet  him,  and  caught  him 
by  the  arm  in  a  panic  of  horror.  Lite  patted  her  hand 
awkwardly,  not  knowing  what  he  ought  to  say. 


14        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 


iC 


What  made  you  go  in  there  1 ''  came  of  its  own 
accord  from  his  lips.     "  That's  no  place  for  a  girl." 

"  It's  Johnny  Croft !  "  she  gasped  just  above  her 
breath.     "  How  —  did  it  happen,  Lite  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Lite  slowly,  looking  down  and 
still  patting  her  hand.  "  Your  father  and  I  have  both 
been  gone  all  day.  I  just  got  back  a  few  minutes  ago 
and  found  out  about  it."  His  tone,  his  manner  and 
his  ji^ords  impressed  upon  Jean  the  point  he  wanted  her 
to  get, —  that  her  father  had  not  yet  returned,  and  so 
knew  nothing  of  the  crime. 

He  led  her  back  to  where  Pard  stood,  and  told  her  to 
get  on.  Without  asking  him  why,  Jean  obeyed  him, 
with  a  shudder  when  her  wide  eyes  strayed  fascinated 
to  the  open  door  and  to  what  lay  just  within.  Lite 
went  up  and  pulled  the  door  shut,  and  then,  walking  be- 
side her  with  an  arm  over  Pard's  neck,  he  led  the  way 
down  to  the  stable,  and  mounted  Eanger. 

"  You  can't  stay  here,"  he  explained,  when  she  looked 
at  him  inquiringly.  "  Do  you  want  to  go  over  and  stay 
at  Carl's,  or  would  you  rather  go  back  to  town  ?  "  He 
rode  down  toward  the  gate,  and  Jean  kept  beside  him. 

"  I'm  going  to  stay  with  dad,"  she  told  him  shakily. 
"  If  he  stays,  I'll  —  I'll  stay." 

"  You'll  not  stay,"  he  contradicted  her  bluntly. 
"  You  can't.     It  wouldn't  be  right."     And  he  added 


HOW    TROUBLE    CAME  15 

self -reproachfully :  "I  never  thought  of  your  cutting 
across  the  bench  and  riding  down  the  trail  back  of  the 
house.     I  meant  to  head  you  off  — " 

"  It's  shorter/'  said  Jean  briefly.  "I  —  if  I  can't 
stay,  I'd  rather  go  to  town,  Lite.  I  don't  like  to  stay 
over  at  Uncle  Carl's." 

Therefore,  when  they  reached  the  mouth  of  the 
coulee,  Lite  turned  into  the  trail  that  led  to  town. 
All  down  the  coulee  the  trail  had  been  dug  deep  with 
the  hoofprints  of  a  galloping  horse;  and  now,  on  the 
town  trail,  they  w^ere  as  j)lain  as  a  primer  to  one 
schooled  in  the  open.  But  Jean  was  too  upset  to 
notice  them,  and  for  that  Lite  was  thankful.  They 
did  not  talk  much,  beyond  the  commonplace  specula- 
tions which  tragedy  always  brings  to  the  lips  of  the 
bystanders.  Comments  that  w^ere  perfectly  obvious 
they  made,  it  is  true.  Jean  said  it  was  perfectly  aw- 
ful, and  Lite  agreed  with  her.  Jean  wondered  how  it 
could  have  happened,  and  Lite  said  he  didn't  know. 
Neither  of  them  said  anything  about  the  effect  it  would 
have  upon  their  future;  I  don't  suppose  that  Jean,  at 
least,  could  remotely  guess  at  the  effect.  It  is  certain 
that  Lite  preferred  not  to  do  so. 

They  were  no  more  than  half  way  to  town  when  they 
met  a  group  of  galloping  horsemen,  their  coming  her- 
alded for  a  mile  by  the  dust  they  kicked  out  of  the  trail. 


16        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

In  the  midst  rode  Jean's  father.  Alongside  him 
rode  the  coroner,  and  behind  him  rode  the  sheriff. 
The  rest  of  the  company  was  made  np  of  men  who  had 
heard  the  news  and  were  coming  to  look  upon  the 
tragedy.  Lite  drew  a  long  breath  of  relief.  Aleck 
Douglas,  then,  had  not  been  running  away. 


CHAPTEK  II 

CONCEKNING    LITE    AND    A    FEW    FOOTPRINTS 

' '  T  UCKY  you  was  with  me  all  day,  up  to  four 
-i — ^  o'clock,  Lite,"  Jim  said.  "  That  lets  you  out 
slick  and  clean,  seeing  the  doctor  claims  he'd  been  dead 
six  hours  when  he  seen  him  last  night.  Crofty  —  why, 
Crofty  was  laying  in  there  dead  when  I  was  talking 
about  him  to  you!  Kinda  gives  a  man  the  creeps  to 
think  of  it.     Who  do  you  reckon  done  it,  Lite  ?  " 

"  How'n  hell  do  I  know  ? "  Lite  retorted  irritably. 
"  I  didn't  see  it  done." 

Jim  studied  awhile,  an  ear  cocked  for  the  signal  that 
the  coroner  was  ready  to  begin  the'  inquest.  "  Say," 
he  leaned  over  and  whispered  in  Lite's  ear,  "  where 
was  Aleck  at,  all  day  yesterday  ? " 

"  Riding  over  in  the  bend,  looking  for  black-leg 
signs,"  said  Lite  promptly.  ^^  Packed  a  lunch,  same  as 
I  did." 

The  answer  seemed  to  satisfy  Jim  and  to  eliminate 
from  his  mind  any  slight  suspicion  he  may  have  held, 
but  Lite  had  a  sudden  impulse  to  improve  upon  his 
statement. 


X8        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

"  I  saw  Aleck  ride  into  the  ranch  as  I  was  coming 
home,"  he  said.  As  he  spoke,  his  face  lightened  as 
with  a  weight  lifted  from  his  mind. 

Later,  when  the  coroner  questioned  him  ahout  hia 
movements  and  the  movements  of  Aleck,  Lite  repeated 
the  lie  as  casually  as  possible.  It  might  have  carried 
more  weight  with  the  jury  if  Aleck  Douglas  himself  had 
not  testified,  just  before  then,  that  he  had  returned 
about  three  o'clock  to  the  ranch  and  pottered  around  the 
corral  with  the  mare  and  colt,  and  unsaddled  his  horse 
before  going  into  the  house  at  all.  It  was  only  when 
he  had  discovered  Johnny  Croft's  horse  at  the  haystack, 
he  said,  that  he  began  to  wonder  where  the  rider  could 
be.  He  had  gone  to  the  house  —  and  found  him  on 
the  kitchen  floor. 

Lite  had  not  heard  this  statement,  for  the  simple 
reason  that,  being  a  closely  interested  person,  he  had 
been  invited  to  remain  outside  while  Aleck  Douglas 
testified.  He  wondered  why  the  jury, —  men  whom 
he  knew  and  had  known  for  years,  most  of  them, — 
looked  at  one  another  so  queerly  when  he  declared  that 
he  had  seen  Aleck  ride  home.  The  coroner  also  had 
given  him  a  queer  look,  but  he  had  not  made  any  com- 
ment. Aleck,  too,  had  turned  his  head  and  stared  at 
Lite  in  a  way  which  Lite  preferred  to  think  he  had  not 
understood. 


CONCERNING   LITE  19 

Beyond  that  one  statement  which  had  produced  snch 
a  curious  effect,  Lite  did  not  have  anything  to  say  that 
shed  the  faintest  light  upon  the  matter.  He  told  where 
he  had  been,  and  that  he  had  discovered  the  body  just 
before  Jean  arrived,  and  that  he  had  immediately 
started  with  her  to  town.  The  coroner  did  not  cross- 
question  him.  Counting  from  four  o'clock,  which  Jim 
had  already  named  as  the  time  of  their  separation,  Lite 
would  have  had  just  about  time  to  do  the  things  he 
testified  to  doing.  The  only  thing  he  claimed  to  have 
done  and  could  not  possibly  have  done,  was  to  see  Aleck 
Douglas  riding  into  the  coulee.  Aleck  himself  had 
branded  that  a  lie  before  Lite  had  ever  uttered  it. 

The  result  was  just  what  was  to  be  expected.  Aleck 
Douglas  was  placed  under  arrest,  and  as  a  prisoner  he 
rode  back  to  town  alongside  the  sheriff, —  an  old  friend 
of  his,  by  the  way, —  to  where  Jean  waited  impatiently 
for  news. 

It  was  Lite  who  told  her.  "  It'll  come  out  all  right," 
he  said,  in  his  calm  way  that  might  hide  a  good  deal  of 
emotion  beneath  it.  "  It's  just  to  have  something  to 
work  from, —  don't  mean  anything  in  particular.  It's 
a  funny  way  the  law  has  got,"  he  explained,  "  of  ar- 
resting the  last  man  that  saw  a  fellow  alive,  or  the  first 
one  that  sees  him  dead." 

Jean    studied    this    explanation    dolefully.     "  They 


20        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

ought  to  find  out  the  last  one  that  saw  him  alive,"  she 
said  resentfully,  "  and  arrest  him,  then, —  and  leave 
dad  out  of  it.  There's  no  sense  in  the  law,  if  that's 
the  way  it  works." 

"  Well,  I  didn't  make  the  law,"  Lite  observed,  in 
a  tone  that  made  Jean  look  up  curiously  into  his 
face. 

"  Why  don't  they  find  out  who  saw  him  last  ? "  she 
repeated.  "  Somebody  did.  Somebody  must  have 
gone  there  with  him.  Lite,  db  you  know  that  Art  Os- 
good came  into  town  with  his  horse  all  in  a  lather  of 
sweat,  and  took  the  afternoon  train  yesterday?  I  saw 
him.  I  met  him  square  in  the  middle  of  the  street,  and 
he  didn't  even  look  at  me.  Lie  was  in  a  frightful  hurry, 
and  he  looked  all  upset.  If  I  was  the  law,  I'd  leave 
dad  alone  and  get  after  Art  Osgood.  He  acted  to  me," 
she  added  viciously,  ^'  exactly  as  if  he  were  running 
away !  " 

"  He  wasn't,  though.  Jim  told  me  Art  was  going  to 
leave  yesterday;  that  was  in  the  forenoon.  He's  going 
to  Alaska, —  been  planning  it  all  spring.  And  Carl 
said  he  was  with  Art  till  Art  left  to  catch  the  train. 
Somebody  else  from  town  here  had  seen  him  take  the 
train,  and  asked  about  him.     No,  it  wasn't  Art." 

"  Well,  who  was  it,  then  ?  " 

Never  before  had  Lite  failed  to  tell  Jean  just  what 


CONCERNING   LITE  21 

she  wanted  to  know.  He  failed  now,  and  he  went  away 
as  though  he  was  glad  to  put  distance  between  them. 
He  did  not  know  what  to  think.  He  did  not  want  to 
think.  Certainly  he  did  not  want  to  talk,  to  Jean 
especially.  For  lies  never  came  easily  to  the  tongue  of 
Lite  Avery.  It  was  all  very  well  to  tell  Jean  that  he 
didn't  know  who  it  was;  he  did  tell  her  so,  and  made 
his  escape  before  she  could  read  in  his  face  the  fear  that 
he  did  know.  It  was  not  so  easy  to  guard  his  fear  from 
the  keen  eyes  of  his  fellows,  with  whom  he  must  mingle 
and  discuss  the  murder,  or  else  pay  the  penalty  of  hav- 
ing them  suspect  that  he  knew  a  great  deal  more  about 
it  than  he  admitted. 

Several  men  tried  to  stop  him  and  talk  about  it,  but 
he  put  them  off.  He  was  due  at  the  ranch,  he  said,  to 
look  after  the  stock.  He  didn't  know  a  thing  about  it, 
anyway. 

Lazy  A  coulee,  when  he  rode  into  it,  seemed  to  wear 
already  an  air  of  depression,  foretaste  of  what  was  to 
come.  The  trail  was  filled  with  hoofprints,  and  cut 
deep  with  the  wagon  that  had  borne  the  dead  man  to 
town  and  to  an  unwept  burial.  At  the  gate  he  met 
Carl  Douglas,  riding  with  his  head  sunk  deep  on  his 
chest.  Lite  would  have  avoided  that  meeting  if  he 
could  have  done  so  unobtrusively,  but  as  it  was,  he 
pulled  up  and  waited  while  Carl  opened  the  wire  gate 


22        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

and  dragged  it  to  one  side.  From  the  look  of  his  face, 
Carl  also  would  have  avoided  the  meeting,  if  he 
could  have  done  so.  He  glanced  up  as  Lite  passed 
through. 

"  Hell  of  a  verdict,"  Lite  made  brief  comment  when 
he  met  Carl's  eyes. 

Carl  stopped,  leaning  against  his  horse  with  one 
hand  thrown  up  to  the  saddle-horn.  He  was  a  small 
man,  not  at  all  like  Aleck  in  size  or  in  features.  He 
looked  haggard  now  and  white. 

"  What  do  you  make  of  it  ?  "  he  asked  Lite.  "  Do 
you  believe  —  ?  " 

*^  Of  course  I  don't !  Great  question  for  a  brother 
to  ask,"  Lite  retorted  sharply.  "  It's  not  in  Aleck  to 
do  a  thing  like  that." 

"  What  made  you  say  you  saw  him  ride  home  ?  You 
didn't,  did  you  ?  " 

"  You  heard  what  I  said ;  take  it  or  leave  it."  Lite 
scowled  down  at  Carl.  "  What  was  there  queer  about 
it?     Why—" 

^^  If  you'd  been  inside  ten  minutes  before  then," 
Carl  told  him  bluntly,  "  you'd  have  heard  Aleck  say  he 
came  home  a  full  hour  or  more  before  you  say  you  saw 
him  ride  in.  That's  what's  queer.  What  made  you 
do  that  ?     It  won't  help  Aleck  none." 

^'  Well,  what  are  you  going  to  do  about  it  ?  "     Lite 


CONCERNING   LITE  28 

slouched  miserably  in  the  saddle,  and  eyed  the  other 
without  really  seeing  him  at  all.  "  They  can't  prove 
anything  on  Aleck/'  he  added  with  faint  hope. 

"  I  don't  see  myself  how  they  can."  Carl  brightened 
perceptibly.  "  His  being  alone  all  day  is  bad ;  he  can't 
furnish  the  alibi  you  can  furnish.  But  they  can't  prove 
anything.  They'll  turn  him  loose,  the  grand  jury  will ; 
they'll  have  to.  They  can't  indict  him  on  the  evidence. 
They  haven't  got  any  evidence, —  not  any  more  than 
just  the  fact  that  he  rode  in  with  the  news.  No  need 
to  worry;  he'll  be  turned  loose  in  a  few  days."  He 
picked  up  the  gate,  dragged  it  after  him  as  he  went 
through,  and  fumbled  the  wire  loop  into  place  over  the 
post.  "  I  wish,"  he  said  when  he  had  mounted  with 
the  gate  between  them,  "  you  hadn't  been  so  particular 
to  say  you  saw  him  ride  home  about  the  same  time  you 
did.     That  looks  bad,  Lite." 

"  Bad  for  who  ?  "  Lite  turned  in  the  saddle  aggres- 
sively. 

"  Looks  bad  all  around.  I  don't  see  w^hat  made  you 
do  that ;  —  not  when  you  knew  Jim  and  Aleck  had  both 
testified  before  you  did." 

Lite  rode  slowly  down  the  road  to  the  stable,  and 
cursed  the  impulse  that  had  made  him  blunder  so.  He 
had  no  compunctions  for  the  lie,  if  only  it  had  done  any 
good.     It  had  done  harm ;  ho  could  see  now  that  it  had. 


24        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

But  he  could  not  believe  that  it  would  make  any  ma- 
terial difference  in  Aleck's  case.  As  the  story  had  been 
repeated  to  Lite  by  half  a  dozen  men,  who  had  heard 
him  tell  it,  Aleck's  own  testimony  had  been  responsible 
for  the  verdict. 

Men  had  told  Lite  plainly  that  Aleck  was  a  fool 
not  to  plead  self-defense,  even  in  face  of  the  fact  that 
Johnny  Croft  had  not  drawn  any  weapon.  Jim  had 
declared  that  Aleck  could  have  sworn  that  Johnny 
reached  for  his  gun.  Others  admitted  voluntarily  that 
while  it  would  be  a  pretty  weak  defense,  it  would  beat 
the  story  Aleck  had  told. 

Lite  turned  the  mare  and  colt  into  a  shed  for  the 
night.  He  milked  the  two  cows  without  giving  any 
thought  to  what  he  was  doing,  and  carried  the  milk  to 
the  kitchen  door  before  he  realized  that  it  would  be 
wasted,  sitting  in  pans  when  the  house  would  be  empty. 
Still,  it  occurred  to  him  that  he  might  as  well  go  on 
with  the  routine  of  the  place  until  they  knew  to  a  cer- 
tainty what  the  grand  jury  would  do.  So  he  went  in 
and  put  away  the  milk. 

After  that,  Lite  let  other  work  wait  while  he  cleaned 
the  kitchen  and  tried  to  wash  out  that  brown  stain  on 
the  floor.  His  face  was  moody,  his  eyes  dull  with 
trouble.  Like  a  treadmill,  his  mind  went  over  and  over 
the  meager  knowledge  he  had  of  the  tragedy.     He  could 


CONCERNING   LITE  25 

not  bring  himself  to  believe  Aleck  Douglas  guilty  of  the 
murder;  yet  he  could  not  believe  anything  else. 

Johnny  Croft,  it  had  been  proven  at  the  inquest, 
rode  out  from  town  alone,  bent  on  mischief,  if  vague, 
half-drunken  threats  meant  anything.  lie  had  told 
more  than  one  that  he  was  going  to  the  Lazy  A,  but  it 
was  certain  that  no  one  had  followed  him  from  town. 
His  threats  had  been  for  the  most  part  directed  against 
Carl,  it  is  true;  but  if  he  had  meant  to  quarrel  with 
Carl,  he  would  have  gone  to  the  Bar  Nothing  instead  of 
the  Lazy  A.  Probably  he  had  meant  to  see  both  Carl 
and  Aleck,  and  had  come  here  first,  since  it  was  the 
nearest  to  town. 

As  to  enemies,  no  one  had  particularly  liked  Johnny. 
He  was  not  a  likeable  sort ;  he  was  too  "  mouthy '' 
according  to  his  associates.  He  had  quarreled  with  a 
good  many  for  slight  cause,  but  since  he  was  so  notori- 
ously blatant  and  argumentative,  no  one  had  taken  him 
seriously  enough  to  nurse  any  grudge  that  would  be 
likely  to  breed  assassination.  It  was  inconceivable  to 
Lite  that  any  man  had  trailed  Johnny  Croft  to  the 
Lazy  A  and  shot  him  down  in  the  kitchen  while  he  was 
calmly  helping  himself  to  Jean's  gingerbread.  Still, 
he  must  take  that  for  granted  or  else  believe  what  he 
steadfastly  refused  to  confess  even  to  himself  that  he 
believed. 


26        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

It  was  nearly  dark  when  he  threw  out  the  last  pail 
of  water  and  stood  looking  down  dissatisfied  at  the  re- 
sult of  his  labor,  while  he  dried  his  hands.  The  stain 
was  still  there,  in  spite  of  him,  just  as  the  memory  of 
the  murder  would  cling  always  to  the  place.  He  went 
out  and  watered  Jean's  poppies  and  sweet  peas  and 
pansies,  still  going  over  and  over  the  evidence  and  try- 
ing to  fill  in  the  gaps. 

He  had  blundered  with  his  lie  that  had  meant  to 
help.  The  lie  had  proven  to  every  man  who  heard  him 
utter  it  that  his  faith  in  Aleck's  innocence  was  not 
strong;  it  had  proven  that  he  did  not  trust  the  facts. 
That  hurt  Lite,  and  made  it  seem  more  than  ever  his 
task  to  clear  up  the  matter,  if  he  could.  If  he  could 
not,  then  he  would  make  amends  in  whatever  way  he 
might. 

Almost  as  if  he  were  guarding  that  gruesome  room 
which  was  empty  now  and  silent, —  since  the  clock  had 
not  been  wound  and  had  run  down, —  he  sat  long  upon 
the  narrow  platform  before  the  kitchen  door  and  smoked 
and  stared  straight  before  him.  Once  he  thought  he 
saw  a  man  move  cautiously  from  the  corner  of  the 
shed  where  the  youngest  calf  slept  beside  its  mother. 
He  had  been  thinking  so  deeply  of  other  things  that 
he  was  not  sure,  but  he  went  down  there,  his  cigarette 
glowing  in  the  gloom,  and  stood  looking  and  listening. 


CONCERNING   LITE  27 

He  neither  saw  nor  heard  anything,  and  presently 
he  went  back  to  the  house;  but  his  abstraction  was 
broken  by  the  fancy,  so  that  he  did  not  sit  down  again 
to  smoke  and  think.  He  had  thought  until  his  brain 
felt  heavy  and  stupid;  and  the  last  cigarette  he  lighted 
he  threw  away,  for  he  had  smoked  until  his  tongue  was 
sore.     He  went  in  and  w^ent  to  bed. 

For  a  long  time  he  lay  awake.  Finally  he  dropped 
into  a  sleep  so  heavy  that  it  was  nearer  to  a  torpor,  and 
it  was  the  sunlight  that  awoke  him;  sunlight  that  was 
warm  in  the  room  and  proved  how  late  the  morning  was. 
He  swore  in  his  astonishment  and  got  up  hastily,  a 
great  deal  more  optimistic  than  when  he  had  lain  down, 
and  hurried  out  to  feed  the  stock  before  he  boiled  coffee 
and  fried  eggs  for  himself. 

It  was  when  he  went  in  to  cook  his  belated  breakfast 
that  Lite  noticed  something  which  had  no  logical  ex- 
planation. There  were  footprints  on  the  kitchen  floor 
that  he  had  scrubbed  so  diligently.  He  stood  looking 
at  them,  much  as  he  had  looked  at  the  stain  that  would 
not  come  out,  no  matter  how  hard  he  scrubbed.  He  had 
not  gone  m  the  room  after  he  had  pulled  the  door  shut 
and  gone  off  to  water  Jean's  flowers.  He  was  positive 
upon  that  point ;  and  even  if  he  had  gone  in,  his  tracks 
would  scarcely  have  led  straight  across  the  room  to  the 
cupboard  where  the  table  dishes  were  kept. 


28        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

The  tracks  led  to  the  cupboard,  and  were  muddled 
confusedly  there,  as  though  the  maker  had  stood  there 
for  some  minutes.  Lite  could  not  see  any  sense  in 
that.  They  were  very  distinct,  just  as  footprints  al- 
ways show  plainly  on  clean  boards.  The  floor  had  evi- 
dently been  moist  still, —  Lite  had  scrubbed  man-fash- 
ion, with  a  broom,  and  had  not  been  very  particular 
about  drying  the  floor  afterwards.  Also  he  had  thrown 
the  water  straight  out  from  the  door,  and  the  fellow 
must  have  stepped  on  the  moist  sand  that  clung  to  his 
boots.  In  the  dark  he  could  not  notice  that,  or  see  that 
he  had  left  tracks  on  the  floor. 

Lite  went  to  the  cupboard  and  looked  inside  it,  won- 
dering what  the  man  could  have  wanted  there.  It  was 
one  of  those  old-fashioned  "  safes  "  such  as  our  grand- 
mothers considered  indispensable  in  the  furnishing  of 
a  kitchen.  It  held  the  table  dishes  neatly  piled:  din- 
ner plates  at  the  end  of  the  middle  shelf,  smaller  plates 
next,  then  a  stack  of  saucers, —  the  arrangement  stereo- 
typed, unvarying  since  first  Lite  Avery  had  taken  dish- 
towel  in  hand  to  dry  the  dishes  for  Jean  when  she  was 
ten  and  stood  upon  a  footstool  so  that  her  elbows  would 
be  higher  than  the  rim  of  the  dishpan.  The  cherry- 
blossom  dinner  set  that  had  come  from  the  mail-order 
house  long  ago  was  chipped  now  and  incomplete,  but 
the  familiar  rows  gave  Lite  an  odd  sense  of  the  un- 


CONCERNING   LITE  29 

reality  of  the  tragedy  that  had  so  lately  taken  place  in 
that  room. 

Clearly  there  was  nothing  there  to  tempt  a  thief,  and 
there  was  nothing  disturbed.  Lite  straightened  up  and 
looked  down  thoughtfully  upon  the  top  of  the  cup- 
board, where  Jean  had  stacked  out-of-date  newspapers 
and  magazines,  and  where  Aleck  had  laid  a  pair  of  ex- 
tra gloves.  He  pulled  out  the  two  small  drawers  just 
under  the  cupboard  top  and  looked  within  them.  The 
first  held  pipes  and  sacks  of  tobacco  and  books  of  ciga- 
rette papers;  Lite  knew  well  enough  the  contents  of 
that  drawer.  He  appraised  the  supply  of  tobacco,  re- 
membered how  much  had  been  there  on  the. morning  of 
the  murder,  and  decided  that  none  had  been  taken. 
He  helped  himself  to  a  fresh  ten-cent  sack  of  tobacco 
and  inspected  the  other  drawer. 

Here  were  merchants'  bills,  a  few  letters  of  no  con- 
sequence, a  couple  of  writing  tablets,  two  lead  pencils, 
and  a  steel  pen  and  a  squat  bottle  of  ink.  This  was 
called  the  writing-drawer,  and  had  been  since  Lite  first 
came  to  the  ranch.  Here  Lite  believed  the  confusion 
was  recent.  Jean  had  been  very  domestic  since  her 
return  from  school,  and  all  disorder  had  been  frowned 
upon.  Lately  the  letters  had  been  stacked  in  a  cor- 
ner, whereas  now  they  were  scattered.  But  they  were 
of  no  consequence,  once  they  had  been  read,  and  there 


30        JEAN   OF    THE    LAZY   A 

was   nothing  else   to   merit    attention   from   any  one. 

Lite  looked  down  at  the  tracks  and  saw  that  they  led 
into  another  room,  which  was  Aleck's  bedroom.  He 
went  in  there,  but  he  could  not  find  any  reason  for  a 
night-prowler's  visit.  Aleck's  desk  was  always  open. 
There  was  never  anything  there  which  he  wanted  to 
hide  away.  His  account  books  and  his  business  cor- 
respondence, such  as  it  was,  lay  accessible  to  the  curi- 
ous. There  was  nothing  intricate  or  secret  about  the 
running  of  the  Lazy  A  ranch;  nothing  that  should  in- 
terest any  one  save  the  owner. 

It  occurred  to  Lite  that  incriminating  evidence  is 
sometimes  placed  surreptitiously  in  a  suspected  man's 
desk.  He  had  heard  of  such  things  being  done.  He 
could  not  imagine  what  evidence  might  be  placed  here 
by  any  one,  but  he  made  a  thorough  search.  He  did 
not  find  anything  that  remotely  concerned  the  mur- 
der. 

He  looked  through  the  living-room,  and  even  opened 
the  door  which  led  from  the  kitchen  into  Jean's  room, 
which  had  been  built  on  to  the  rest  of  the  house  a  few 
years  before.  He  could  not  find  any  excuse  for  those 
footprints. 

He  cooked  and  ate  his  breakfast  absent-mindedly, 
glancing  often  down  at  the  footprints  on  the  floor,  and 
occasionally  at  the  brown  stain  in  the  center.     He  de- 


CONCERNING   LITE  31 

cided  that  he  would  not  say  anything  about  those  tracks. 
He  would  keep  his  eyes  open  and  his  mouth  shut,  and 
see  what  came  of  it. 


CHAPTEE  III 

WHAT    A    man's    good    NAME    IS    WORTH 

YOU  would  think  that  the  bare  word  of  a  man  who 
has  lived  uprightly  in  a  community  for  fifteen 
years  or  so  would  be  believed  under  oath,  even  if  his 
whole  future  did  depend  upon  it.  You  would  think 
that  Aleck  Douglas  could  not  be  convicted  of  murder 
just  because  he  had  reported  that  a  man  was  shot  dov/n 
in  Aleck's  house. 

The  report  of  Aleck  Douglas'  trial  is  not  the  main 
feature  of  this  story;  it  is  merely  the  commencement, 
one  might  say.  Therefore,  I  am  going  to  be  brief  as 
I  can  and  still  give  you  a  clear  idea  of  the  situation, 
and  then  I  am  going  to  skip  the  next  three  years  and 
begin  where  the  real  story  begins. 

Aleck's  position  was  dishearteningly  simple,  and  there 
was  nothing  much  that  one  could  do  to  soften  the  facts 
or  throw  a  new  light  on  the  murder.  Lite  watched, 
wide  awake  and  eager,  many  a  night  for  the  return  of 
that  prowler,  but  he  never  saw  or  heard  a  thing  that 
gave  him  any  clue  whatever.  So  the  footprints  seemed 
likely  to  remain  the  mystery  they  had  seemed  on  the 


A   MAN'S    GOOD    NAME  33 

morning  when  he  discovered  them.  He  laid  traps,  pre- 
tending to  ride  away  from  the  ranch  to  town  before 
dark,  and  returning  cautiously  by  way  of  the  trail 
down  the  bluff  behind  the  house.  But  nothing  came  of 
it.  Lazy  A  ranch  was  keeping  its  secret  well,  and  by 
the  time  the  trial  was  begun,  Lite  had  given  up  hope. 
Once  he  believed  the  house  had  been  visited  in  the  day- 
time, during  his  absence  in  town,  but  he  could  not  be 
sure  of  that. 

Jean  went  to  Chinook  and  stayed  there,  so  that  Lite 
saw  her  seldom.  Carl  also  was  away  much  of  the  time, 
trying  by  every  means  he  could  think  of  to  swing  public 
opinion  and  the  evidence  in  Aleck's  favor.  He  pre- 
vailed upon  Rossman,  who  was  Montana's  best-known 
lawyer,  to  defend  the  case,  for  one  thing.  He  seemed 
to  pin  his  faith  almost  wholly  upon  Rossman,  and  de- 
clared to  every  one  that  Aleck  would  never  be  convicted. 
It  would  be,  he  maintained,  impossible  to  convict  him, 
with  Eossman  handling  the  case ;  and  he  always  added 
the  statement  that  you  can't  send  an  innocent  man  to 
jail,  if  things  are  handled  right. 

Perhaps  he  did  not,  after  all,  handle  things  right.  For 
in  spite  of  Rossman,  and  Aleck's  splendid  reputation, 
and  the  meager  evidence  against  him,  he  was  found 
guilty  of  manslaughter  and  sentenced  to  eight  years  in 
Deer  Lodge  penitentiary. 


34        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

Rossman  had  made  a  great  speech,  and  had  made 
men  in  the  jury  blink  back  unshed  tears.  But  he  could 
not  shake  from  them  the  belief  that  Aleck  Douglas  had 
ridden  home  and  met  Johnny  Croft,  calmly  making 
himself  at  home  in  the  Lazy  A  kitchen.  He  could  not 
convince  them  that  there  had  not  been  a  quarrel,  and 
that  Aleck  had  not  fired  the  shot  in  the  grip  of  a  sud- 
den, overwhelming  rage  against  Croft.  By  Aleck's 
own  statement  he  had  been  at  the  ranch  some  time  be- 
fore he  had  started  for  town  to  report  the  murder.  By 
the  word  of  several  witnesses,  it  had  been  proven  that 
Croft  had  left  town  meaning  to  collect  wages  which  he 
claimed  were  due  him  or  else  he  would  "  get  even." 
His  last  words  to  a  group  out  by  the  hitching  pole  in 
front  of  the  saloon  which  was  Johnny's  hangout,  were : 
^'  I'm  going  to  get  what's  coming  to  me,  or  there'll  be 
one  fine,  large  bunch  of  trouble !  "  He  had  not  men- 
tioned Aleck  Douglas  by  name,  it  is  true;  but  the  fact 
that  he  had  been  found  at  the  Lazy  A  was  proof  enough 
that  he  had  referred  to  Aleck  when  he  spoke. 

There  is  no  means  of  knowing  just  how  far-reaching 
was  the  effect  of  that  impulsive  lie  which  Lite  had  told 
at  the  inquest.  He  did  not  repeat  the  blunder  at  the 
trial.  When  the  district  attorney  reminded  Lite  of 
the  statement  he  had  made,  Lite  had  calmly  explained 
that  he  had  made  a  mistake;  he  should  have  said  that 


A   MAN'S    GOOD    NAME         35 

he  had  seen  Aleck  ride  away  from  the  ranch  instead 
of  to  it.  Beyond  that  he  would  not  go,  question  him  as 
they  might. 

The  judge  sentenced  Aleck  to  eight  years,  and  pub- 
licly regretted  the  fact  that  Aleck  had  persisted  in  as- 
serting his  innocence;  had  he  pleaded  guilty  instead, 
the  judge  more  than  hinted,  the  sentence  would  have 
been  made  as  light  as  the  law  would  permit.  It  was 
the  stubborn  denial  of  the  deed  in  the  face  of  all  rea- 
son, he  said,  that  went  far  toward  weaning  from  the 
prisoner  what  sympathy  he  would  otherwise  have  com- 
manded from  the  public  and  the  court  of  justice. 

You  know  how  those  things  go.  There  was  nothing 
particularly  out  of  the  ordinary  in  the  case;  we  read 
of  such  things  in  the  paper,  and  a  paragraph  or  two  is 
considered  sufficient  space  to  give  so  commonplace  a 
happening. 

But  there  was  Lite,  loyal  to  his  last  breath  in  the 
face  of  his  secret  belief  that  Aleck  was  probably  guilty ; 
loyal  and  blaming  himself  bitterly  for  hurting  Aleck's 
cause  when  he  had  meant  only  to  help.  There  was 
Jean,  dazed  by  the  magnitude  of  the  catastrophe  that 
had  overtaken  them  all ;  clinging  to  Lite  as  to  the  only 
part  of  her  home  that  was  left  to  her,  steadfastly  re- 
fusing to  believe  that  they  would  actually  take  her  dad 
away  to  prison,  until  the  very  last  minute  when  she 


36        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

stood  on  the  crowded  depot  platform  and  watched  in 
dry-eyed  misery  while  the  train  slid  away  and  bore 
him  out  of  her  life.  These  things  are  not  put  in  the 
papers. 

"  Come  on,  Jean.''  Lite  took  her  by  the  arm  and 
swung  her  away  from  the  curious  crowd  which  she  did 
not  see.  "  You're  my  girl  now,  and  I'm  going  to  start 
right  in  using  my  authority.  I've  got  Pard  here  in 
the  stable.  You  go  climb  into  your  riding-clothes,  and 
we'll  hit  it  outa  this  darned  burg  where  every  man  and 
his  dog  has  all  gone  to  eyes  and  tongues.  They  make 
me  sick.     Come  on." 

"  Where  ? "  Jean  held  back  a  little  w^ith  vague 
stubbornness  against  the  thought  of  taking  up  life  again 
without  her  dad.  "  This  —  this  is  the  jumping-off 
place,  Lite.     There's  nothing  beyond." 

Lite  gripped  her  arm  a  little  tighter  if  anything, 
and  led  her  across  the  street  and  down  the  high  side- 
walk that  bridged  a  swampy  tract  at  the  edge  of  town 
beyond  the  depot. 

"  We're  taking  the  long  way  round,"  he  observed, 
"  because  I'm  going  to  talk  to  you  like  a  Dutch  uncle 
for  saying  things  like  that.  I  —  had  a  talk  with  your 
dad  last  night,  Jean.  He's  turned  you  over  to  me  to 
look  after  till  he  gets  back.  I  wish  he  coulda  turned 
the  ranch  over,  along  with  you,  but  he  couldn't.     That's 


A   MAN'S    GOOD    NAME         37 

been  signed  over  to  Carl,  somehow;  I  didn't  go  into 
that  with  your  dad ;  we  didn't  have  much  time.  Seems 
Carl  put  up  the  money  to  pay  Rossman, —  and  other 
things, —  and  took  over  the  ranch  to  square  it.  Any- 
way, I  haven't  got  anything  to  say  about  the  business 
end  of  the  deal.  I've  got  permission  to  boss  you, 
though,  and  I'm  sure  going  to  do  it  to  a  fare-you-well." 
He  cast  a  sidelong  glance  down  at  her.  He  could  not 
see  anything  of  her  face  except  the  droop  of  her  mouth, 
a  bit  of  her  cheek,  and  her  chin  that  promised  firmness. 
Her  mouth  did  not  change  expression  in  the  slightest 
degree  until  she  moved  her  lips  in  speech. 

"  I  don't  care.  What  is  there  to  boss  me  about  ? 
The  world  has  stopped."  Her  voice  was  steady,  and 
it  was  also  sullen. 

"Right  there  is  where  the  need  of  bossing  begins. 
You  can't  stay  in  town  any  longer.  There's  nothing 
here  to  keep  you  from  going  crazy ;  and  the  Aliens  are 
altogether  too  sympathetic;  nice  folks,  and  they  mean 
well, —  but  you  don't  want  a  bunch  like  that  slopping 
around,  crying  all  over  you  and  keeping  you  in  mind 
of  things.  I'm  going  to  work  for  Carl,  from  now  on. 
You're  going  out  there  to  the  Bar  Nothing — "  He 
felt  a  stiffening  of  the  muscles  under  his  fingers,  and 
answered  calmly  the  signal  of  rebellion. 

"  Sure,  that's  the  place  for  you.     Your  dad  and  Carl 


38        JEAN   OF    THE    LAZY   A 

fixed  that  up  between  them,  anyway.  That's  to  be 
your  home;  so  my  saying  so  is  just  an  extra  rope  to 
bring  you  along  peaceable.  You're  going  to  stay  at 
the  Bar  Nothing.  And  I'm  going  to  make  a  top  hand 
outa  you,  Jean.  I'm  going  to  teach  you  to  shoot  and 
rope  and  punch  cows  and  ride,  till  there  won't  be  a 
girl  in  the  United  States  to  equal  you." 

"  What  for  ? "  Jean  still  had  an  air  of  sullen 
apathy.     "  That  won't  help  dad  any." 

"  It'll  start  the  world  moving  again."  Lite  forced 
himself  to  cheerfulness  in  the  face  of  his  own  de- 
spondency. "  You  say  it's  stopped.  It's  us  that  have 
stopped.  We've  come  to  a  blind  pocket,  you  might 
say,  in  the  trail  we've  been  taking  through  life.  We've 
got  to  start  in  a  new  place,  that's  all.  Now,  I  know 
you're  dead  game,  Jean;  at  least  I  know  you  used  to 
be,  and  I'm  gambling  on  school  not  taking  that  outa 
you.  You're  maybe  thinking  about  going  away  off 
somewhere  among  strangers;  but  that  wouldn't  do  at 
all.  Your  dad  always  counted  on  keeping  you  away 
from  town  life.  I'm  just  going  to  ride  herd  on  ^^ou, 
Jean,  and  see  to  it  that  you  go  on  the  way  your  dad 
wanted  you  to  go.  He  can't  be  on  the  job,  and  so  I'm 
what  you  might  call  his  foreman.  I  know  how  he 
wants  you  to  grow  up ;  I'm  going  to  make  it  my  busi- 
ness to  grow  you  according  to  directions." 


A   MAN'S    GOOD    NAME         39 

He  saw  a  little  quirk  of  her  lips,  at  that,  and  was 
vastly  encouraged  thereby. 

^'  Has  it  struck  you  that  you're  liable  to  have  your 
hands  full  ? ''  she  asked  him  with  a  certain  drawl  that 
Jean  had  possessed  since  she  first  learned  to  express 
herself  in  words. 

"  Sure !  I'll  likely  have  both  hand  and  my  hat  full 
of  trouble.  But  she's  going  to  be  done  according  to 
contract.  I  reckon  I'll  wish  you  was  a  bronk  before 
I'm  through  — " 

"  What  maddens  me  so  that  I  could  run  amuck  down 
this  street,  shooting  everybody  I  saw,"  Jean  flared  out 
suddenly,  "  is  the  sickening  injustice  of  it.  Dad  never 
did  that ;  you  know  he  never  did  it."  She  turned  upon 
him  fiercely.  "  Do  you  think  he  did  ?  "  she  demanded, 
her  eyes  boring  into  his. 

^'  jSTow,  that's  a  bright  question  to  be  asking  me,  ain't 
it  ? "  Lite  rebuked.  "  That's  a  real  bright,  sensible 
question,  I  must  say !  I  reckon  you  ought  to  be  stood 
in  the  corner  for  that, —  but  I'll  let  it  go  this  time. 
Only  don't  never  spring  anything  like  that  again." 

Jean  looked  ashamed.  ^'  I  could  doubt  God  Him- 
self, right  now,"  she  gritted  through  her  teeth. 

"  Well,  don't  doubt  me,  unless  you  want  a  scrap  on 
your  hands,"  Lite  warned.  "  I'm  sure  ashamed  of 
you.     We'll  stop  here  at  the  stable  and  get  the  horses. 


40        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

You  can  ride  sideways  as  far  as  the  Aliens',  and  get 
your  riding-skirt  and  come  on.  The  sooner  you  are 
on  top  of  a  horse,  the  quicker  you're  going  to  come  outa 
that  state  of  mind." 

It  was  pitifully  amusing  to  see  Lite  Avery  attempt 
to  bully  any  one, —  especially  Jean, —  who  might  al- 
most be  called  Lite's  religion.  The  idea  of  that  long, 
lank  cowpuncher  whose  shyness  was  so  ingrained  that 
it  had  every  outward  appearance  of  being  a  phlegmatic 
coldness,  assuming  the  duties  of  Jean's  dad  and  under- 
taking to  see  that  she  grew  up  according  to  directions, 
would  have  been  funny,  if  he  had  not  been  so  abso- 
lutely in  earnest. 

His  method  of  comforting  her  and  easing  her 
through  the  first  stage  of  black  despair  was  unorthodox, 
but  it  was  effective.  Because  she  was  too  absorbed  in 
her  own  misery  to  combat  him  openly,  he  got  her  started 
toward  the  Bar  ISlothing  and  away  from  the  friends 
whose  enervating  pity  was  at  that  time  the  worst  in- 
fluence possible.  He  set  the  pace,  and  he  set  it  for 
►  speed.  The  first  mile  they  went  at  a  sharp  gallop  that 
was  not  far  from  a  run,  and  the  horses  were  breathing 
heavily  w^hen  he  pulled  up,  well  out  of  sight  of  the 
town,  and  turned  to  the  girl. 

There  was  color  in  her  cheeks,  and  the  dullness  was 
gone  from  her  eyes  when  she  returned  his  glance  in- 


A   MAN'S    GOOD    NAME         41 

quiringly.  The  droop  of  her  lips  was  no  longer  the 
droop  of  a  weak  yielding  to  sorrow,  but  rather  the  be- 
ginning of  a  brave  facing  of  the  future.  Lite  man- 
aged a  grin  that  did  not  look  forced. 

^^  I'll  make  a  real  range  hand  outa  you  yet/'  he  an- 
nounced confidently.  "  You  remember  the  roping  and 
shooting  science  I  taught  you  before  you  went  off  to 
school?  You're  going  to  start  right  in  where  you  left 
off  and  learn  all  I  know  and  some  besides.  I'll  make 
a  lady  of  you  yet, —  darned  if  I  don't." 

At  that  Jean  laughed  unexpectedly.  Lite  drew  a 
long  breath  of  relief. 


CHAPTER  lY 

JEAN 

THE  still  loneliness  of  desertion  held  fast  the  clut- 
ter of  sheds  and  old  stables  roofed  with  dirt  and 
rotting  hay.  The  melancholy  of  emptiness  hung  like 
an  invisible  curtain  before  the  sprawling  house  with 
warped,  weather-blackened  shingles,  and  sagging  win- 
dow-frames. You  felt  the  silence  when  first  you 
sighted  the  ranch  buildings  from  the  broad  mouth  of 
the  Lazy  A  coulee, —  the  broad  mouth  that  yawned 
always  at  the  narrow  valley  and  the  undulations  of  the 
open  range,  and  the  purple  line  of  mountains  beyond. 
You  felt  it  more  strongly  when  you  rode  up  to  the  gate 
of  barbed-wire,  spliced  here  and  there,  and  having  an 
unexpected  stubbornness  to  harry  the  patience  of  men 
who  would  pass  through  it  in  haste.  You  grew  unac- 
countably depressed  if  you  rode  on  past  the  stables  and 
corrals  to  the  house,  where  the  door  was  closed  but 
never  locked,  and  opened  with  a  squeal  of  rusty  hinges, 
if  you  turned  the  brown  earthenware  knob  and  at  the 
same  instant  pressed  sharply  with  your  knee  against 
the  paintless  panel. 

You  might  notice  the  broAvn  spot   on  the  kitchen 


JEAN  43 

floor  where  a  man  had  died ;  you  might  notice  the  brown 
spot,  but  unless  you  had  been  told  the  grim  story  of 
the  Lazy  A,  you  would  never  guess  the  spot  was  a 
bloodstain.  Even  though  you  guessed  and  shuddered, 
you  would  forget  it  presently  in  the  amazement  with 
which  you  opened  the  door  beyond  and  looked  in  upon 
a  room  where  the  chill  atmosphere  of  the  whole  place 
could  find  no  lodgment. 

This  was  Jean's  room,  held  sacred  to  her  own  needs 
and  uses,  in  defiance  of  the  dreariness  that  compassed 
it  close.  A  square  of  old  rag  carpet  covered  the  center 
of  the  floor,  and  beyond  its  border  the  warped  boards 
were  painted  a  dull,  pale  green.  The  walls  were  ugly 
with  a  cheap,  flowered  paper  that  had  done  its  best  to 
fade  into  inoffensive  neutral  tints.  Jean  had  helped, 
where  she  could,  by  covering  the  intricate  rose  pattern 
with  old  prints  cut  from  magazines  and  with  cheap, 
pretty  souvenirs  gleaned  here  and  there  and  hoarded 
jealously.  And  there  were  books,  which  caught  the 
eyes  and  held  them  even  to  forgetfulness  of  the  paper. 

You  would  laugh  at  Jean's  room.  Just  at  first  you 
would  laugh ;  after  that  you  would  want  to  cry,  or  pat 
Jean  on  her  hard-muscled,  capable  shoulder ;  but  if  you 
knew  Jean  at  all,  you  w^ould  not  do  either.  Eirst  you 
would  notice  an  old  wooden  cradle,  painted  blue,  that 
stood  in  a  corner.     A  button-eyed,  blank-faced  rag  doll, 


44        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

the  size  of  a  baby  at  the  fist-sucking  age,  was  tucked 
neatly  under  the  red-and-white  patchwork  quilt  made 
to  fit  the  cradle.  Hanging  directly  over  the  cradle  by 
a  stirrup  was  Jean's  first  saddle, —  a  cheap  pigskin 
affair  with  harsh  straps  and  buckles,  that  her  father 
had  sent  East  for.  Jean  never  had  liked  that  saddle, 
even  when  it  was  new.  She  used  to  stand  perfectly 
still  while  her  father  buckled  it  on  the  little  buckskin 
pony  she  rode;  and  she  would  laugh  when  he  picked 
her  up  and  tossed  her  into  the  seat.  She  would  throw 
her  dad  a  kiss  and  go  galloping  off  down  the  trail, — 
but  when  she  was  quite  out  of  sight  around  the  bend  of 
the  bench-land,  she  would  stop  and  take  the  saddle  off, 
and  hide  it  in  a  certain  clump  of  wild  currant  bushes, 
and  continue  her  journey  bareback.  A  kit-fox  found 
it  one  day;  that  is  how  the  edge  of  the  cantle  came  to 
have  that  queer,  chewed  look. 

There  was  an  old,  black  wooden  rocker  with  an  oval 
picture  of  a  ship  under  full  sail,  just  where  Jean's 
brown  head  rested  when  she  leaned  back  and  stared 
big-eyed  down  the  coulee  to  the  hills  beyond.  There 
was  an  old-fashioned  work-basket  always  full  of  stock- 
ings that  never  were  mended,  and  a  crumpled  dresser 
scarf  which  Jean  had  begun  to  hemstitch  more  than  a 
year  ago  in  a  brief  spasm  of  domesticity.  There  were 
magazines  everywhere ;  and  you  may  be  sure  that  Jean 


JEAN  45 

had  read  them  all,  even  to  the  soap  advertisements  and 
the  sanitary  kitchens  and  the  vacuum  cleaners.  There 
was  an  old  couch  with  a  coarse,  ISTavajo  rug  thrown  over 
it,  and  three  or  four  bright  cushions  that  looked  much 
used.  And  there  were  hair  macartas  and  hackamores, 
and  two  pairs  of  her  father's  old  spurs,  and  her  father's 
stock  saddle  and  chaps  and  slicker  and  hat;  and  a  jelly 
glass  half  full  of  rattlesnake  rattles,  and  her  mother's 
old  checked  sunbonnet, —  the  kind  with  pasteboard 
^^  slats."  Half  the  "  slats  ''  were  broken.  There  was 
a  guitar  and  an  old,  old  sewing  machine  with  a  re- 
loading shotgun  outfit  spread  out  upon  it.  There  was 
a  desk  made  of  boxes,  and  on  the  desk  lay  a  shot-loaded 
quirt  that  more  than  one  rebellious  cow-horse  knew  to 
its  sorrow.  There  was  a  rawhide  lariat  that  had  parted 
its  strands  in  a  tussle  with  a  stubborn  cow.  Jean  meant 
to  ^x  the  broken  end  of  the  longest  piece  and  use  it 
for  a  tie-rope,  some  day  when  she  had  time,  and 
thought  of  it. 

Somewhere  in  the  desk  were  verses  which  Jean  had 
written, —  dozens  of  them,  and  not  nearly  as  bad  as 
you  might  think.  Jean  laughed  at  them  after  they 
were  written ;  but  she  never  burned  them,  and  she 
never  spoke  of  them  to  any  one  but  Lite,  who  listened 
with  fixed  attention  and  a  solemn  appreciation  when 
she  read  them  to  him. 


46        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

On  the  whole,  the  room  was  contradictory.  But  Jean 
herself  was  somewhat  contradictory,  and  the  place  fitted 
her.  Here  was  where  she  spent  those  hours  when  her 
ajbsence  from  the  Bar  ^N'othing  was  left  unexplained  to 
any  one  save  Lite.  Here  was  where  she  drew  into  her 
shell,  when  her  Uncle  Carl  made  her  feel  more  than 
usually  an  interloper ;  or  when  her  Aunt  Ella's  burden 
of  complaints  and  worry  and  headaches  grew  just  a 
little  too  much  for  Jean. 

She  never  opened  the  door  into  the  kitchen.  There 
was  another  just  beyond  the  sewing-machine,  that  gave 
an  intimate  look  into  the  face  of  the  bluff  which  formed 
that  side  of  the  coulee  wall.  There  were  hollyhocks 
along  the  path  that  led  to  this  door,  and  stunted  rose- 
bushes which  v/ere  kept  alive  with  much  mysterious 
assistance  in  the  way  of  water  and  cultivation.  There 
was  a  little  spring  just  under  the  foot  of  the  bluff, 
where  the  trail  began  to  climb;  and  some  young  alders 
made  a  shady  nook  there  which  Jean  found  pleasant 
on  a  hot  day. 

The  rest  of  the  house  might  be  rat-ridden  and  deso- 
late. The  coulee  might  wear  always  the  look  of  empti- 
ness; but  here,  under  the  bluff  by  the  spring,  and  in 
the  room  Jean  called  hers,  one  felt  the  air  of  occu- 
pancy that  gave  the  lie  to  all  around  it. 

When  she  rode  around  the  bold,  out-thrust  shoulder 


JEAN  47 

of  the  hill  which  formed  the  western  rim  of  the  coulee, 
and  went  loping  up  the  trail  to  where  the  barbed-wire 
gate  stopped  her,  you  would  have  said  that  Jean  had 
not  a  trouble  to  call  her  own.  She  wore  her  old  gray 
Stetson  pretty  well  over  one  eye  because  of  the  sun- 
glare,  and  she  was  riding  on  one  stirrup  and  letting  the 
other  foot  swing  free,  and  she  was  whirling  her  quirt 
round  and  round,  cartwheel  fashion,  and  whistling  an 
air  that  every  one  knows, —  and  putting  in  certain  com- 
plicated variations  of  her  own. 

At  the  gate  she  dismounted  without  ever  missing  a 
note,  gave  the  warped  stake  a  certain  twist  and  jerk 
which  loosened  the  wire  loop  so  that  she  could  slip  it 
easily  over  the  post,  passed  through  and  dragged  the 
gate  with  her,  dropping  it  flat  upon  the  ground  beside 
the  trail.  There  was  no  stock  anywhere  in  the  coulee, 
and  she  would  save  a  little  trouble  by  leaving  the  gate 
open  until  she  came  out  on  her  way  home.  She 
stepped  aside  to  inspect  the  meadow  lark's  nest  cun- 
ningly hidden  under  a  wild  rosebush,  and  then  mounted 
and  went  on  to  the  stable,  still  whistling  carelessly. 

She  turned  Pard  into  the  shed  where  she  invariably 
left  him  when  she  came  to  the  Lazy  A,  and  went  on  up 
the  grass-grown  path  to  the  house.  She  had  the  pre- 
occupied air  of  one  who  meditates  deeply  upon  things 
apart;  as  a  matter  of  fact,  she  had  glanced  down  the 


48        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

coulee  to  its  wide-open  mouth,  and  had  thrilled  briefly 
at  the  wordless  beauty  of  the  green  spread  of  the  plain 
and  the  hazy  blue  sweep  of  the  mountains,  and  had 
come  suddenly  into  the  poetic  mood.  She  had  even 
caught  a  phrase, — "  The  lazy  line  of  the  watchful  hills," 
it  was, —  and  she  was  trying  to  fit  it  into  a  verse,  and 
to  find  something  beside  "  rills  "  that  w^ould  rhyme  with 
"  hiHs." 

She  followed  the  path  absent-mindedly  to  where  she 
would  have  to  turn  at  the  corner  of  the  kitchen  and  go 
around  to  the  door  of  her  own  room;  and  until  she 
came  to  the  turn  she  did  not  realize  what  was  jarring 
vaguely  and  yet  insistently  upon  her  mood.  Then  she 
knew ;  and  she  stopped  full  and  stared  down  at  the  loose 
sand  just  before  the  warped  kitchen  steps.  There  were 
footprints  in  the  path, —  alien  footprints ;  and  they 
pointed  toward  that  forbidden  door  into  the  kitchen  of 
grewsome  memory.  Jean  looked  up  frowning,  and  saw 
that  the  door  had  been  opened  and  closed  again  care- 
lessly. And  upon  the  top  step,  strange  feet  had  pressed 
a  little  caked  earth  carried  from  the  trail  where  she 
stood.  There  were  the  small-heeled,  pointed  prints  of 
a  woman's  foot,  and  there  were  the  larger  tracks  of  a 
man, —  a  man  of  the  town. 

Jean  stood  with  her  quirt  dangling  loosely  from  her 
wrist  and  glanced  back  toward  the  stables  and  down 


JEAN  49 

the  coulee.  She  completely  forgot  that  she  wanted  a 
rhyme  for  "  hills."  What  were  towns  people  doing 
here?  And  how  did  they  get  here?  They  had  not 
ridden  up  the  coulee ;  there  were  no  tracks  through  the 
gate;  and  besides,  these  were  not  the  prints  of  riding- 
boots. 

She  twitched  her  shoulders  and  went  around  to  the 
door  leading  into  her  own  room.  The  door  stood  wide 
open  when  it  should  have  been  closed.  Inside  there 
were  evidences  of  curious  inspection.  She  went  hot 
with  an  unreasoning  anger  when  she  saw  the  wide-open 
door  into  the  kitchen;  first  of  all  she  went  over  and 
closed  that  door,  her  lips  pressed  tightly  together.  To 
her  it  was  as  though  some  wanton  hand  had  forced  up 
the  lid  of  a  coffin  where  slept  her  dead.  She  stood  with 
her  back  against  the  door  and  looked  around  the  room, 
breathing  quickly.  She  felt  the  woman's  foolish  amuse- 
ment at  the  old  cradle  with  the  rag  doll  tucked  under 
the  patchwork  quilt,  and  at  her  pitiful  attempts  at 
adorning  the  tawdry  walls.  Without  having  seen  more 
than  the  prints  of  her  shoes  in  the  path,  Jean  hated  the 
woman  who  had  blundered  in  here  and  had  looked  and 
laughed.  She  hated  the  man  who  had  come  with  the 
woman. 

She  went  over  to  her  desk  and  stood  staring  at  the 
litter.     A    couple    of    sheets    of    cheap    tablet    paper, 


50        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

whereon  Jean  Lad  scribbled  some  verses  of  the  range, 
lay  across  the  quirt  she  had  forgotten  on  her  last  trip. 
They  had  prowled  among  the  papers,  even !  They  had 
respected  nothing  of  hers,  had  considered  nothing  sa- 
cred from  their  inquisitiveness.  Jean  picked  up  the 
paper  and  read  the  verses  through,  and  her  cheeks  red- 
dened slowly. 

Then  she  discovered  something  else  that  turned  them 
white  with  fresh  anger.  Jean  had  an  old  ledger 
wherein  she  kept  a  sporadic  kind  of  a  diary  which  she 
had  entitled  "  More  or  Less  the  Eecord  of  my  Sins.'' 
She  did  not  write  anything  in  it  unless  she  felt  like 
doing  so;  when  she  did,  she  wrote  just  exactly  what 
she  happened  to  think  and  feel  at  the  time,  and  she  had 
never  gone  back  and  read  what  was  written  there. 
Some  one  else  had  read,  however ;  at  least  the  book  had 
been  pulled  out  of  its  place  and  inspected,  along  with 
her  other  personal  belongings.  Jean  had  pressed  the 
first  wind-flowers  of  the  season  between  the  pages  w^here 
she  had  done  her  last  scribbling,  and  these  were  crum- 
pled and  two  petals  broken,  so  she  knew  that  the  book 
had  been  opened  carelessly  and  perhaps  read  with  that 
same  brainless  laughter. 

She  did  not  say  anything.  She  straightened  the 
wind-flowers  as  best  she  could,  put  the  book  back  where 
it  belonged,  and  went  outside,  and  down  to  a  lop-sided 


JEAN  51 

shack  which  might  pass  anywhere  as  a  jimk-shop.  She 
found  some  nails  and  a  hammer,  and  after  a  good  deal 
of  rummaging  and  some  sneezing  because  of  the  dust 
she  raised  whenever  she  moved  a  pile  of  rubbish,  she 
found  a  padlock  with  a  key  in  it.  More  dusty  search 
produced  a  hasp  and  some  staples,  and  then  she  went 
back  and  nailed  two  planks  across  the  door  which  opened 
into  the  kitchen.  After  that  she  fastened  the  windows 
shut  with  nails  driven  into  the  casing  just  above  the 
lower  sashes,  and  cracked  the  outer  door  with  twelve- 
penny  nails  which  she  clinched  on  the  inside  with  vicious 
blows  of  the  hammer,  so  that  the  hasp  could  not  be  taken 
off  without  a  good  deal  of  trouble.  She  had  pulled  a 
great  staple  off  the  door  of  a  useless  box-stall,  and  when 
she  had  driven  it  in  so  deep  that  she  could  scarcely  force 
the  padlock  into  place  over  the  hasp,  and  had  put  the 
key  in  her  pocket,  she  felt  in  a  measure  protected  from 
future  prowlers.  As  a  final  hint,  however,  she  went 
back  to  the  shop  and  mixed  some  paint  with  lampblack 
and  oil,  and  lettered  a  thin  board  which  she  afterwards 
carried  up  and  nailed  firmly  across  the  outside  kitchen 
door.  Hammer  in  hand  she  backed  away  and  read 
the  words  judicially,  her  head  tilted  sidewise: 

Only  SNEAKS  go  where  they  are  not  wanted, 
ARE  YOU  A  SNEAK? 


52        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

The  hint  was  plain  enough.  She  took  the  hammer 
back  to  the  shop  and  led  Pard  out  of  the  stable  and  down 
to  the  gate,  her  eyes  watching  suspiciously  the  trail  for 
tracks  of  trespassers.  She  closed  the  gate  so  thor- 
oughly with  baling  wire  twisted  about  a  stake  that  the 
next  comer  would  have  troubles  of  his  own  in  getting 
it  open  again.  She  mounted  and  went  away  down  the 
trail,  sitting  straight  in  the  saddle,  both  feet  in  the 
stirrups,  head  up,  and  hat  pulled  firmly  down  to  her 
very  eyebrows,  glances  going  here  and  there,  alert,  an- 
tagonistic. 1^0  whistling  this  time  of  rag-time  tunes 
with  queer  little  variations  of  her  own;  no  twirling  of 
the  quirt;  instead  Pard  got  the  feel  of  it  in  a  tender 
part  of  the  flank,  and  went  clean  over  a  narrow  wash- 
out that  could  have  been  avoided  quite  easily.  I^o 
groping  for  rhythmic  phrasings  to  fit  the  beauty  of  the 
land  she  lived  in ;  Jean  was  in  the  mood  to  combat  any- 
thing that  came  in  her  way. 


CHAPTER  V 

JEAN    EIDES    INTO    A    SMALL    ADVENTUKE 

AT  the  mouth  of  the  coulee,  she  turned  to  the  left 
instead  of  to  the  right,  and  so  galloxDed  directly 
away  from  the  Bar  Nothing  ranch,  down  the  narrow 
valley  known  locally  as  the  Flat,  and  on  to  the  hills  that 
invited  her  with  their  untroubled  lights  and  shadows 
and  the  deep  scars  she  knew  for  canyons. 

There  were  no  ranches  out  this  way.  The  land  was 
too  broken  and  too  barren  for  anything  but  grazing, 
so  that  she  felt  fairly  sure  of  having  her  solitude  un- 
spoiled by  anything  human.  Solitude  was  what  she 
wanted.  Solitude  was  what  she  had  counted  upon  hav- 
ing in  that  little  room  at  the  Lazy  A;  robbed  of  it 
there,  she  rode  straight  to  the  hills,  w^here  she  was  most 
certain  of  finding  it. 

And  then  she  came  up  out  of  a  hollow  upon  a  little 
ridge  and  saw  three  horsemen  down  in  the  next  coulee. 
They  were  not  close  enough  so  that  she  could  distin- 
guish their  features,  but  by  the  horses  they  rode,  by  the 
swing  of  their  bodies  in  the  saddles,  by  all  those  little, 
indefinable  marks  by  which  WQ  recognize  acquaintances 


54        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

at  a  distance,  Jean  knew  them  for  strangers.  She 
pulled  up  and  watched  them,  puzzled  for  a  minute  at 
their  presence  and  behavior. 

When  first  she  discovered  them,  they  were  driving 
a  small  bunch  of  cattle,  mostly  cows  and  calves,  down 
out  of  a  little  "  draw  "  to  the  level  bottom  of  the  nar- 
roAv  coulee.  While  she  watched,  herself  screened  ef- 
fectually by  a  clump  of  bushes,  she  saw  one  rider  leave 
the  cattle  and  gallop  out  into  the  open,  stand  there 
looking  toward  the  mouth  of  the  coulee,  and  wave  his 
hand  in  a  signal  for  the  others  to  advance.  This  lookea 
queer  to  Jean,  accustomed  all  her  life  to  seeing  men 
go  calmly  about  their  business  upon  the  range,  careless 
of  observation  because  they  had  nothing  to  conceal. 
She  urged  Pard  a  little  nearer,  keeping  well  behind 
the  bushes  still,  and  leaned  forward  over  the  saddle 
horn,  watching  the  men  closely. 

Their  next  performance  was  enlightening,  biit  in- 
credibly bold  for  the  business  they  were  engaged  in. 
One  of  the  three  got  off  his  horse  and  started  a  little 
fire  of  dry  sticks  under  a  convenient  ledge.  Another 
untied  the  rope  from  his  saddle,  widened  the  loop, 
swung  it  twice  over  his  head  and  flipped  it  neatly  over 
the  head  of  a  calf. 

Jean  did  not  wait  to  see  any  more  than  that ;  she  did 
not  need  to  see  any  more  to  know  them  for  '^  rustlers.'' 


A    SMALL   ADVENTURE         55 

Brazen  rustlers,  indeed,  to  go  about  their  work  in  broad 
daylight  like  that.  She  was  not  sure  as  to  the  owner- 
ship of  the  calf,  but  down  here  was  where  the  Bar  I^oth- 
ing  cattle,  and  what  few  were  left  of  the  Lazy  A, 
ranged  while  the  feed  was  good  in  the  spring,  so  that 
the  probabilities  Vv^ere  that  this  theft  would  strike  rather 
close  home.  Whether  it  did  or  not,  Jean  was  not  one 
to  ride  away  and  leave  range  thieves  calmly  at  work. 

She  turned  back  behind  the  bushy  screen,  rode  hastily 
along  the  ridge  to  the  head  of  the  little  coulee  and  dis- 
mounted, leading  Pard  down  a  steep  bank  that  was 
treacherous  with  loose  shale.  The  coulee  was  more  or 
less  open,  but  it  had  convenient  twists  and  windings; 
and  if  you  think  that  Jean  failed  to  go  down  it  quietly 
and  unseen^  that  merely  proves  how  little  you  know 
Jean. 

She  hurried  as  much  as  she  dared.  She  knew  that 
the  rustlers  would  be  in  something  of  a  hurry  them- 
selves, and  she  very  much  desired  to  ride  on  them  un- 
awares and  catch  them  at  that  branding,  so  that  there 
would  be  no  shadow  of  a  doubt  of  their  guilt.  What 
she  would  do  after  she  had  ridden  upon  them,  she  did 
not  quite  know. 

So  she  came  presently  around  the  turn  that  revealed 
them  to  her.  They  were  still  fussing  with  the  calf, — 
or  it  may  have  been  another  one, —  and  did  not  see  her 


56        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

until  she  was  close  upon  them.  When  they  did  see  her, 
she  had  them  covered  with  her  38-caliber  six-shooter, 
that  she  usually  carried  with  her  on  the  chance  of  get- 
ting a  shot  at  a  coyote  or  a  fox  or  something  like  that. 

The  three  stood  up  and  stared  at  her,  their  jaws 
sagging  a  little  at  the  suddenness  of  her  appearance, 
and  their  eyes  upon  the  gun.  Jean  held  it  steady,  and 
she  had  all  the  look  of  a  person  who  knew  exactly  what 
she  meant,  and  who  meant  business.  She  eyed  them 
curiously,  noting  the  fact  that  they  were  strangers,  and 
cowboys, —  though  of  a  type  that  she  had  never  seen  on 
the  range.  She  glanced  sharply  at  the  beaded,  buckskin 
jacket  of  one  of  them,  and  the  high,  wide-brimmed  som- 
brero of  another. 

"  Well,"  she  said  at  length,  "  turn  your  backs ;  you've 
had  a  good  look  at  me.  Turn  —  yorir  —  backs,  I  said. 
Now,  drop  those  guns  on  the  ground.  Walk  straight 
ahead  of  you  till  you  come  to  that  bank.  You  needn't 
look  around ;  I'm  still  here.'' 

She  leaned  a  little,  sending  Pard  slowly  forward 
until  he  was  close  to  the  six-shooters  lying  on  the 
ground.  She  glanced  down  at  them  quickly,  and  again 
at  the  men  who  stood,  an  uneas}^  trio,  with  their  faces 
toward  the  wall,  except  when  they  ventured  a  glance 
sidewise  or  back  at  her  over  one  shoulder.  She  glanced 
at   the   cattle  huddled   in   the  narrow  mouth   of   the 


A    SMALL   ADVENTURE        57 

"  draw  "  behind  them,  and  saw  that  they  were  indeed 
Bar  Nothing  and  Lazy  A  stock.  The  horses  the  three 
had  been  riding  she  did  not  remember  to  have  seen 
before. 

Jean  hesitated,  not  quite  knowing  what  she  ought  to 
do  next.  So  far  she  had  acted  merely  upon  instincts 
bom  of  her  range  life  and  training ;  the  rest  would  not 
be  so  easy.  She  knew  she  ought  to  have  those  guns,  at 
any  rate,  so  she  dismounted,  still  keeping  the  three  in 
line  with  her  own  weapon,  and  went  to  where  the  re- 
volvers lay  on  the  ground.  With  her  boot  toe  she 
kicked  them  close  together,  and  stooped  and  picked  one 
up.  The  last  man  in  the  line  turned  toward  her  pro- 
testingly,  and  Jean  fired  so  close  to  his  head  that  he 
ducked. 

"Believe  me,  I  could  kill  the  three  of  you  if  I 
wanted  to,  before  you  could  turn  around,' '  she  in- 
formed them  calmly,  "  so  you  had  better  stand  still  till 
I  tell  you  to  move.''  She  frowned  down  at  the  rustler's 
gun  in  her  hand.  There  was  something  queer  about 
that  gun. 

"  Hey,  Burns,"  called  the  man  in  the  middle,  with- 
out venturing  to  turn  his  head,  "  come  out  of  there  and 
explain  to  the  lady.     This  ain't  in  the  scene !  " 

"  Oh,  yes,  it  is  I "  a  voice  retorted  chucklingly. 
"  You  bet  your  life   this  is   in  the   scene !     Lowry's 


58        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

been  pamming  it  all  in ;  don't  you  worry  about  that !  "   • 

Jean  was  startled,  but  she  did  not  lower  her  gun 
from  its  steady  aiming  at  the  three  of  them.  It  was  \ 
just  some  trick,  very  likely,  meant  to  throw  her  off  her 
guard.  There  were  more  than  the  three,  and  the  fourth 
man  probably  had  her  covered  with  a  gun.  But  she 
would  not  turn  her  head  toward  his  voice,  for  all  that. 

"  The  gentleman  called  Burns  may  walk  out  into  the 
open  and  explain,  if  he  can,"  she  announced  sharply, 
her  eyes  upon  the  three  whom  she  had  captured  so 
easily. 

She  heard  the  throaty  chuckle  again,  from  somewhere 
to  the  left  of  her.  She  saw  the  three  men  in  front  of 
her  look  at  each  other  with  sickly  grins.  She  felt  that 
the  whole  situation  was  swinging  against  her, —  that 
she  had  somehow  blundered  and  made  herself  ridicu- 
lous. It  never  occurred  to  her  that  she  was  in  any 
particular  danger;  men  did  not  shoot  down  women  in 
that  country,  unless  they  were  drunk  or  crazy,  and  the 
man  called  Burns  had  sounded  extremely  sane,  humor- 
ous even.  She  heard  a  rattle  of  bushes  and  the  soft 
crunching  of  footsteps  coming  toward  her.  Still  she 
would  not  turn  her  head,  nor  would  she  lower  the  gun ; 
if  it  was  a  trick,  they  should  not  say  that  it  had  been 
successful. 

"  It's  all  right,  sister,"  said  the  chuckling  voice  pres- 


A    SMALL   ADVENTURE         59 

ently,  almost  at  her  elbow.  "  This  isn^t  any  real,  hon- 
est-to-John  bandit  party.  We^re  just  movie  people,  and 
we're  making  pictures.  That's  all.''  He  stopped,  but 
Jean  did  not  move  or  make  any  reply  whatever,  so  he 
went  on.  "  I  must  say  I  appreciate  the  compliment  you 
paid  us  in  taking  it  for  the  real  dope,  sister  — " 

"  Don't  call  me  sister  again."  Jean  flashed  him  a 
sidelong  glance  of  resentment.  "  You've  already  done 
it  twice  too  often.  Come  around  in  front  where  I  can 
see  you,  if  you're  what  you  claim  to  be." 

"Well,  don't  shoot,  and  I  will,"  soothed  the  chuck- 
ling voice.  "  My,  my,  it  certainly  is  a  treat  to  see  a 
real,  live  Prairie  Queen  once.  Beats  making  them  to 
order  — " 

"  We'll  omit  the  superfluous  chatter,  please."  Jean 
looked  him  over  and  tagged  him  mentally  with  one 
glance.  He  did  not  look  like  a  rustler, —  with  his  fat 
good-nature  and  his  town-bred  personality,  and  his  gray 
tweed  suit  and  pigskin  puttees,  and  the  big  cameo  ring 
on  his  manicured  little  finger,  and  his  fresh-sliaven 
face  as  round  as  the  sun  above  his  head  and  almost  as 
cheerful.  Perfectly  harmless,  but  Jean  would  not 
yield  to  the  extent  of  softening  her  glance  or  her  man- 
ner one  hundredth  of  a  degree.  The  more  harmless 
these  people,  the  more  ridiculous  she  had  made  herself 
appear. 


60        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

The  chuckly  one  grinned  and  removed  his  soft  gray 
hat,  held  it  against  his  generous  equator,  and  bowed  so 
low  as  to  set  him  puffing  a  little  afterward.  His  eyes, 
however,  appraised  her  shrewdly. 

"  Omitting  all  superfluous  chatter,  as  you  suggest, 
I  am  Egbert  Grant  Bums,  of  the  Great  Western  Film 
Company.  These  men  are  also  members  of  that  com- 
pany. We  are  here  for  the  purpose  of  making  West- 
ern pictures,  and  this  little  bit  of  unlawful  branding 
of  stock  which  you  were  flattering  enough  to  mistake 
for  the  real  thing,  is  merely  a  scene  which  we  were 
making."  He  was  about  to  indulge  in  what  he  would 
have  termed  a  little  "  kidding  "  of  the  girl,  but  wisely 
refrained  after  another  shrewd  reading  of  her  face. 

Jean  looked  at  the  three  men,  who  had  taken  it  for 
granted  that  they  might  leave  their  intimate  study  of 
the  clay  bank  and  were  coming  toward  her.  She  looked 
at  the  gun  she  had  picked  up  from  the  ground, —  being 
loaded  with  blank  cartridges  was  what  had  made  it  look 
so  queer !  —  and  at  Eobert  Grant  Burns  of  the  Great 
Western  Film  Company,  who  had  put  on  his  hat  again 
and  was  studying  her  the  way  he  was  wont  to  study 
applicants  for  a  position  in  his  company. 

"  Did  you  get  permission  to  haze  our  cattle  around 
like  this  ? "  she  asked  abruptly,  to  hide  how  humiliated 
she  really  felt* 


A    SMALL    ADVENTURE        61 

"Why  —  no.  Just  for  a  few  scenes,  I  did  not  con- 
sider it  necessary."  Plainly,  the  chuckly  Mr.  Bums 
was  taken  at  a  disadvantage. 

"  But  it  is  necessary.  Don't  make  the  mistake,  Mr. 
Burns,  of  thinlving  this  country  and  all  it  contains  is 
at  the  disposal  of  any  chance  stranger,  just  because  we 
do  not  keep  it  under  lock  and  key.  You  are  making 
rather  free  with  another  man's  personal  property,  when 
you  use  my  uncle's  cattle  for  your  rustling  scenes." 

"'Your  uncle?  Well,  I  shall  be  very  glad  to  make 
some  arrangement  with  your  uncle,  if  that  is  customary." 

"  Why  the  doubt  ?  Are  you  in  the  habit  of  walking 
into  a  man's  house,  for  instance,  and  using  his  kitchen 
to  make  pictures  without  permission?  Has  it  been 
your  custom  to  lead  a  man's  horses  out  of  his  stable 
whenever  you  chose,  and  use  them  for  race  pictures  ?  " 

"  iSTo,  no  —  nothing  like  that.  Sorry  to  have  in- 
fringed upon  your  property-rights,  I  am  sure."  Mr. 
Burns  did  not  sound  so  chuckly  now ;  but  that  may  have 
been  because  the  three  picture-rustlers  were  quite 
openly  pleased  at  the  predicament  of  their  director. 
"  It  never  occurred  to  me  that  — " 

"  That  the  cattle  were  not  as  free  as  the  hills  ?  "  The 
quiet  voice  of  Jean  searched  out  the  tenderest  places 
in  the  self-esteem  of  Robert  Grant  Burns.  She  tossed 
the  blank-loaded  gun  back  upon  the  ground  and  turned 


62        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

to  her  horse.  "  It  does  seem  hard  to  impress  it  upon 
city  people  that  we  savages  do  have  a  few  rights  in  this 
country.  We  should  have  policemen  stationed  on  every 
hilltop,  I  suppose,  and  ^  !N'o  Trespassing '  signs  planted 
along  every  cow-trail.  Even  then  I  doubt  whether  we 
could  convince  some  people  that  we  are  perfectly  human 
and  that  we  actually  do  own  property  here." 

While  she  drawled  the  last  biting  sentences,  she  stuck 
her  toe  in  the  stirrup  and  went  up  into  the  saddle  as 
easily  as  any  cowpuncher  in  the  country  could  have 
done.  Robert  Grant  Burns  stood  with  his  hands  at  his 
hips  and  watched  her  with  the  critical  eye  of  the  ex- 
pert who  sees  in  every  gesture  a  picture,  effective  or  in- 
effective, good,  bad,  or  merely  so-so.  Robert  Grant 
Bums  had  never,  in  all  his  experience  in  directing 
Western  pictures,  seen  a  girl  mount  a  horse  with  such 
unconscious  ease  of  every  movement. 

Jean  twitched  the  reins  and  turned  towards  him, 
looking  down  at  the  little  group  with  unfrien-dly  eyes. 
"  I  don't  want  to  seem  inhospitable  or  unaccommodat- 
ing, Mr.  Burns,''  she  told  him,  "  but  I  fear  that  T  must 
take  these  cattle  back  home  with  me.  You  probably 
will  not  want  to  use  them  any  longer." 

Mr.  Burns  did  not  say  whether  she  was  right  or 
wrong  in  her  conjecture.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  did 
want  to  use  them  for  several  more  scenes;  but  he  stood 


A    SMALL    ADVENTURE         63 

silent  while  Jean,  with  a  chilly  bow  to  the  four  of  them, 
sent  Pard  up  the  rough  bank  of  the  little  guUey. 
Iiather,  he  made  no  reply  to  Jean,  but  he  waved  his 
throe  rustlers  back,  retreating  himself  to  where  the 
bank  stopped  them.  And  ho  turned  toward  the  bushes 
that  had  at  first  hidden  him  from  Jean,  waved  his  hand 
in  an  imperative  gesture,  and  called  guardedly  through 
cupped  palms.  "  Take  that !  All  you  can  get  of  it ! '' 
Which  goes  far  to  show  why  he  was  considered  one  of 
the  best  directors  the  Great  Western  Film  Company 
had  in  its  employ. 

So  Jean  unconsciously  made  a  picture  which  caused 
the  eyes  of  Eobert  Grant  Burns  to  glisten  while  he 
watched.  She  ignored  the  men  who  had  so  fooled  her, 
and  took  down  her  rope  that  she  might  swing  the  loop 
of  it  toward  the  cattle  and  drive  them  back  across  the 
gulley  and  up  the  coulee  toward  home.  Cattle  arc 
stubborn  things  at  best,  and  this  little  bunch  seemed 
determined  to  seek  the  higher  slopes.  Put  upon  her 
mettle  because  of  that  little  audience  down  below, — 
a  mildly  jeering  audience  at  that,  she  imagined, —  Jean 
had  need  of  her  skill  and  her  fifteen  years  or  so  of  ex- 
perience in  handling  stock. 

She  swung  her  rope  and  shouted,  weaving  back  and 
forth  across  the  gulley,  with  little  lunging  rushes  now 
and  then  to  head  off  an  animal  that  tried  to  bolt  past 


64        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY    A 

her  up  the  hill.  She  would  not  have  glanced  toward 
Robert  Grant  Burns  to  save  her  life,  and  she  did  not 
hear  him  saying: 

"Great!  Great  stuff!  Get  it  all,  Pete.  By 
George,  you  can't  beat  the  real  thing,  can  you  ?  'J  get 
that  up-hill  dash  ?  Good !  'Now  panoram  the  drive 
up  the  gulley  —  get  it  all,  Pete  —  turn  as  long  as  you 
can  see  the  top  of  her  hat.  My  Lord !  You  wouldn't 
get  stuff  like  that  in  ten  years.  I  wish  Gay  could  han- 
dle herself  like  that  in  the  saddle,  but  there  ain't  a  lead- 
ing woman  in  the  business  to-day  that  could  put  that 
over  the  way  she's  doing  it.  By  George!  Say,  Gil, 
you  get  on  your  horse  and  ride  after  her,  and  find  out 
where  she  lives.  We  can't  work  any  more  now,  any- 
way; she's  gone  off  with  the  cattle.  And,  say!  You 
don't  want  to  let  her  get  a  sight  of  you,  or  she  might 
take  a  shot  at  you.  And  if  she  can  shoot  the  way  she 
rides  —  good  night !  " 


CHAPTER  VI 

AND    THE    VILLAIN    PUKSUED    HER 

THE  young  man  called  Gil, —  to  avoid  wasting 
time  in  saying  Gilbert  James  Huntley, — 
mounted  in  haste  and  rode  warily  up  the  coulee  some 
distance  behind  Jean.  At  that  time  and  in  that  local- 
ity he  was  quite  anxious  that  she  should  not  discover 
him.  Gil  was  not  such  a  bad  fellow,  even  though  he 
did  play  "  heavies  "  in  all  the  pictures  which  Robert 
Grant  Burns  directed.  A  villain  he  was  on  the  screen, 
and  a  bad  one.  Many's  the  man  he  had  killed  as  cold- 
bloodedly as  the  Board  of  Censorship  would  permit. 
Many's  the  girlish,  Western  heart  he  had  broken,  and 
many's  the  time  he  had  paid  the  penalty  to  brother, 
father,  or  sweetheart  as  the  scenario  of  the  play  might 
decree.  Many's  the  time  he  had  followed  girls  and 
men  warily  through  brush-fringed  gullies  and  over  pic- 
turesque ridges,  for  the  entertainment  of  shop  girls 
and  their  escorts  sitting  in  darkened  theaters  and 
watching  breathlessly  the  wicked  deeds  of  Gilbert  James 
Huntley. 

But  in  his  everyday  life,  Gil  Huntley  was  very  good- 


66        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

looking,  very  good-natured^  and  very  harmless.  His 
position  and  his  salary  as  "  heavy ''  in  the  Great  West- 
ern Company  he  owed  chiefly  to  his  good  acting  and  his 
thick  eyebrows  and  his  facility  for  making  himself  look 
treacherous  and  mean.  He  followed  Jean  because  the 
boss  told  him  to  do  so,  in  the  first  place.  In  the  sec- 
ond place,  he  followed  her  because  he  was  even  more 
interested  in  her  than  his  director  had  been,  and  he 
hoped  to  have  a  chance  to  talk  with  her.  In  his  work- 
aday life,  Gil  Huntley  was  quite  accustomed  to  being 
discovered  in  some  villainy,  and  to  having  some  man  or 
woman  point  a  gun  at  him  with  more  or  less  antag- 
onism in  voice  and  manner.  But  he  had  never  in  his 
life  had  a  girl  ride  up  and  "  throw  down  on  him " 
with  a  gun,  actually  believing  him  to  be  a  thief  and  a 
scoundrel  whom  she  would  shoot  if  she  thought  it  nec- 
essary. There  was  a  difference.  Gil  did  not  take  the 
time  or  trouble  to  analyze  the  difference,  but  he  knew 
that  he  was  glad  the  boss  had  not  sent  Johnny  or  Bill 
in  his  place.  He  did  not  believe  that  either  of  them 
would  have  enough  sense  to  see  the  difference,  and  they 
might  offend  her  in  some  way, —  though  Gil  Huntley 
need  not  have  worried  in  the  least  over  any  man's  treat- 
ment of  Jean,  who  was  eminently  qualified  to  attend  to 
that  for  herself. 

He  grinned  when  he  saw  her  turn  the  cattle  loose 


THE   VILLAIN   PURSUES      61 

down  the  very  next  coulee  and  with  a  final  flip  of  her 
rope  loop  toward  the  hindermost  cow,  ride  on  without 
them.  He  should  have  ridden  in  haste  then  to  tell 
Rohert  Grant  Burns  that  the  cattle  could  be  brought 
back  in  twenty  minutes  or  so  and  the  picture-making 
go  on  as  planned.  It  was  not  likely  that  the  girl  would 
come  back;  they  could  go  on  with  their  work  and  get 
permission  from  the  girFs  uncle  afterward.  But  he 
did  not  turn  and  hurry  back.  Instead,  he  waited  be- 
hind a  rock-huddle  until  Jean  was  well  out  of  sight,— 
and  while  he  waited,  he  took  his  handkerchief  and 
rubbed  hard  at  the  make-up  on  his  face,  which  had 
made  him  look  sinister  and  boldly  bad.  Without  mir- 
ror or  cold  cream,  he  was  not  very  successful,  so  that 
he  rode  on  somewhat  spotted  in  appearance  and  looking 
even  more  sinister  than  before.  But  he  was  much 
more  comfortable  in  his  mind,  which  meant  a  good  deal 
in  the  interview  which  he  hoped  by  some  means  to  bring 
about. 

With  Jean  a  couple  of  hundred  yards  in  advance, 
they  crossed  a  little  flat  so  bare  of  concealment  that 
Gil  Huntley  was  worried  for  fear  she  might  look  back 
and  discover  him.  But  she  did  not  turn  her  head,  and 
he  rode  on  more  confidently.  At  the  mouth  of  Lazy 
A  coulee,  just  where  stood  the  chistcr  of  huge  rocks 
that  had  at  one  time  come  hurtling  down  from  the 


68        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

higher  slopes^  and  the  clump  of  currant  bushes  beneath 
which  Jean  used  to  hide  her  much-despised  saddle 
when  she  was  a  child,  she  disappeared  from  view.  Gil, 
knowing  very  little  of  the  ways  of  the  range  folk,  and 
less  of  the  country,  kicked  his  horse  into  a  swifter  pace 
and  galloped  after  her. 

Fifty  yards  beyond  the  currant  bushes  he  heard  a 
sound  and  looked  back ;  and  there  was  Jean,  riding  out 
from  her  hiding-place,  and  coming  after  him  almost  at 
a  run.  While  he  was  trying  to  decide  what  to  do  about 
it,  she  overtook  him;  rather,  the  wide  loop  of  her  rope 
overtook  him.  He  ducked,  but  the  loop  settled  over 
his  head  and  shoulders  and  pulled  tight  about  the  chest. 
Jean  took  two  turns  of  the  rope  around  the  saddle  horn 
and  then  looked  him  over  critically.  In  spite  of  her- 
self, she  smiled  a  little  at  his  face,  streaked  still  with 
grease  paint,  and  at  his  eyes  staring  at  her  from  between 
heavily  penciled  lids. 

^^  That's  what  you  get  for  following,"  she  said,  after 
a  minute  of  staring  at  each  other.  "  Did  you  think 
I  didn't  know  you  were  trailing  along  behind  me?  I 
saw  you  before  I  turned  the  cattle  loose,  but  I  just  let 
you  think  you  were  being  real  sly  and  cunning  about 
it.  You  did  it  in  real  moving-picture  style;  did  your 
fat  Mr.  Robert  Grant  Burns  teach  you  how  ?  .What  is 
the  idea,  anyway  ?     Were  you  going  to  abduct  me  and 


THE    VILLAIN    PURSUES       69 

lead  me  to  the  swarthy  chief  of  your  gang,  or  band,  or 
whatever  you  call  it  ?  " 

Having  scored  a  point  against  him  and  so  put  her- 
self into  a  good  humor  again,  Jean  laughed  at  him  and 
twitched  the  rope,  just  to  remind  him  that  he  was  at 
her  mercy.  To  be  haughtily  indignant  with  this  hon- 
est-eyed, embarrassed  young  fellow  with  the  streaky 
face  and  heavily-penciled  eyelids  w^as  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. The  wind  caught  his  high,  peaked-crowned  som- 
brero and  sent  it  sailing  like  a  great,  flapping  bird  to 
the  ground,  and  he  could  not  catch  it  because  Jean  had 
his  arms  pinioned  with  the  loop. 

She  laughed  again  and  rode  over  to  w^here  the  hat 
had  lodged.  Gil  Huntley,  to  save  himself  from  being 
dragged  ignominiously  from  the  saddle,  kicked  his  horse 
and  kept  pace  with  her.  Jean  leaned  far  over  and  picked 
up  the  hat,  and  examined  it  with  amusement. 

"  If  you  could  just  live  up  to  your  hat,  my,  wouldn't 
you  be  a  villain,  though ! ''  she  commented,  in  a  soft, 
drawling  voice.  "  You  don't  look  so  terribly  blood- 
thirsty without  it;  I  just  guess  I'd  better  keep  it  for 
a  while.  It  would  make  a  dandy  waste-basket.  Do 
you  know,  if  your  face  were  clean,  I  think  you'd  look 
almost  human, —  for  an  outlaw." 

She  started  on  up  the  trail,  nonchalantly  leading  her 
captive  by  the  rope.     Gil  Huntley  could  have  wriggled 


70        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

an  arm  loose  and  freed  himself,  but  he  did  not.  lie 
wanted  to  see  what  she  was  going  to  do  with  him.  He 
grinned  when  she  had  her  back  turned  toward  him,  but 
he  did  not  say  anything  for  fear  of  spoiling  the  joke 
or  offending  her  in  some  way.  So  presently  Jean  began 
to  feel  silly,  and  the  joke  lost  its  point  and  seemed  inane 
and  weak. 

She  turned  back,  threw  off  the  loop  that  bound 
his  arms  to  his  sides,  and  coiled  the  rope.  "  I  wish 
you  play-acting  people  would  keep  out  of  the  country," 
she  said  impatiently.  "  Twice  you've  made  me  act 
ridiculous.  I  don't  know  what  in  the  world  you  wanted 
to  follow  me  for, —  and  I  don't  care.  Whatever  it  was, 
it  isn't  going  to  do  you  one  particle  of  good,  so  you 
needn't  go  on  doing  it." 

She  looked  at  him  full,  refused  to  meet  half-way  the 
friendliness  of  his  eyes,  tossed  the  hat  toward  him,  and 
wheeled  her  horse  away.  "  Good-by,"  she  said  shortly, 
and  touched  Pard  with  the  spurs.  She  was  out  of 
heariijg  before  Gil  Huntley  could  think  of  the  right 
thing  to  say,  and  she  increased  the  distance  between 
them  so  rapidly  that  before  he  had  quite  recovered  from 
his  surprise  at  her  sudden  change  of  mood,  she  was  so 
far  away  thai:  he  could  not  have  overtaken  her  if  he  had 
tried. 

He  watched  her  out  of  sight  and  rode  back  to  where 


THE    VILLAIN    PURSUES       71 

Burns  moiithed  a  big,  black  cigar,  and  paced  up  and 
down  the  level  space  where  he  had  set  the  interrupted 
scene,  and  waited  his  coming. 

"  Rode  away  from  you,  did  she  ?  Where'd  she  take 
the  cattle  to  2  Left  'em  in  the  next  gulch  ?  Well,  why 
didn't  you  say  so  ?  You  boys  can  bring  'em  back,  and 
we'll  get  to  work  again.  Where'd  you  say  that  spring 
was,  Gil  ?  We'll  eat  before  we  do  anything  else.  One 
thing  about  this  blamed  country  is  we  don't  have  to  be 
afraid  of  the  light.  Got  to  hand  it  to  'em  for  having 
plenty  of  good,  clear  sunlight,  anyway  ?  " 

He  followed  Gil  to  the  feeble  spring  that  seeped  from 
under  a  huge  boulder,  and  stooped  uncomfortably  to 
fill  a  tin  cup.  While  he  waited  for  the  trickle  to  yield 
him  a  drink,  he  cocked  his  head  sidewise  and  looked  up 
quizzically  at  his  "  heavy." 

"  You  must  have  come  within  speaking  distance, 
Gil,"  he  guessed  shrewdly.  ^^  Got  any  make-up  along  ? 
You  look  like  a  mild  case  of  the  measles,  right  now. 
What  did  she  have  to  say,  anyhow  ?  " 

"  mthing,"  said  Gil  shortly.  "  I  didn't  talk  to  her 
at  all.  I  didn't  want  to  run  my  horse  to  death  trying 
to  say  hello  when  she  didn't  want  it  that  way." 

"  Huh !  "  grunted  Robert  Grant  Burns  unbelievingly, 
and  fished  a  bit  of  grass  out  of  the  cup  with  his  little 
finger.     He  drank  and  said  no  more. 


CHAPTEE  VII 

ROBEET    GRANT    BURITS    GETS    HEI^ 

'  *X  7'OU  know  the  brand,  don't  you  ? ''  the  proprietor 
JL  of  the  hotel  which  housed  the  Great  Western 
Company  asked,  with  the  tolerant  air  which  the  sophis- 
ticated wear  when  confronted  by  ignorance.  "  Easy 
enough  to  locate  the  outfit,  by  the  cattle  brand.  What 
was  it  ? " 

Whereupon  Robert  Grant  Eurns  rolled  his  eyes  help- 
lessly toward  Gil  Huntley.  "  I  noticed  it  at  the  time, 
but  —  what  was  that  brand,  Gil  ?  " 

And  Gil,  if  you  would  believe  me,  did  not  remember, 
either.  He  had  driven  the  cattle  half  a  mile  or  more, 
had  helped  to  "  steal ''  two  calv^  out  of  the  little  herd, 
and  yet  he  could  not  recall  the  mark  of  their  owner. 

So  the  proprietor  of  the  hotel,  an  old  cowman  who 
had  sold  out  and  gone  into  the  hotel  business  when  the 
barbed-wire  came  by  carloads  into  the  country,  pulled 
a  newspaper  towards  him,  borrowed  a  pencil  from 
Burns,  and  sketched  all  the  cattle  brands  in  that 
part  of  the  country.  While  he  drew  one  after  the 
other,  he  did  a  little  thinking. 


ROBERT    GRANT    BURNS       73 

"  Must  have  been  the  Bar  ^Nothing,  or  else  the  Lazy 
A  cattle  you  got  hold  of/'  he  concluded,  pointing  to 
the  pencil  marks  on  the  margin  of  the  paper.  "  They 
range  down  in  there,  and  Jean  Douglas  answers  your 
description  of  the  girl, —  as  far  as  looks  go.  She  ain't 
all  that  wild  and  dangerous,  though.  Swing  a  loop 
with  any  man  in  the  country  and  ride  and  all  that, — - 
been  raised  right  out  there  on  the  Lazy  A.  Say  I  Why 
don't  you  go  out  and  see  Carl  Douglas,  and  see  if  you 
can't  get  the  use  of  the  Lazy  A  for  your  pictures? 
Seems  to  me  that's  just  the  kinda  place  you  want. 
Don't  anybody  live  there  now.  It's  been  left  alone  ever 
since  —  the  trouble  out  there.  House  and  barns  and 
corrals, —  everything  you  want."  He  leaned  closer 
with  a  confidential  tone  creeping  into  his  voice,  for 
Robert  Grant  Burns  and  his  company  were  profitable 
guests  and  should  be  given  every  inducement  to  remain 
in  the  country. 

"  It  ain't  but  fifteen  miles  out  there ;  you  could  go 
back  and  forth  in  your  machine,  easy.  You  go  out  and 
see  Carl  Douglas,  anyway;  won't  do  no  harm.  You 
offer  him  a  little  something  for  the  use  of  the  Lazy  A ; 
he'll  take  anything  that  looks  like  money.  Take  it 
from  me,  that's  the  place  you  want  to  take  your  pic- 
tures in.  And,  say!  You  want  a  written  agreement 
with  Carl.     Have  the  use  of  his  stock  included,  or  he'll 


74        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

tax  yon  extra.  Have  everything  inclnded/^  advised 
the  old  cowman,  v^ith  a  sweep  of  his  palm  and  his  voice 
lowered  discreetly.  "  Won't  need  to  cost  yon  much, — 
not  if  yon  don't  give  him  any  encouragement  to  expect 
much.  Carl's  that  kind, —  good  fellow  enough, —  but 
he  wants  —  the  —  big  —  end.  I  know  him,  you  bet  I 
And,  say!  Don't  let  on  to  Carl  that  I  steered  you  out 
there.  Just  claim  like  you  was  scouting  around,  and 
seen  the  Lazy  A  ranch,  and  took  a  notion  to  it ;  not  too 
much  of  a  notion,  though,  or  it's  liable  to  come  kinda 
high. 

"  And,  say !  "  Real  enthusiasm  for  the  idea  began 
to  lighten  his  eyes.  "  If  you  want  good  range  dope, 
right  out  there's  where  you  can  sure  find  it.  You  play 
up  to  them  Bar  Nothing  boys  —  Lite  Avery  and  Joe 
Morris  and  Red.  You  ought  to  get  some  great  pictures 
out  there,  man.  Them  boys  can  sure  ride  and  rope 
and  handle  stock,  if  that's  what  you  want ;  and  I  reckon 
it  is,  or  you  wouldn't  be  out  here  with  your  bunch  of 
actors  looking  for  the  real  stuff." 

They  talked  a  long  while  after  that.  Gradually  it 
dawned  upon  Bums  that  he  had  heard  of  the  Lazy  A 
ranch  before,  though  not  by  that  euphonious  title.  It 
seemed  worth  investigating,  for  he  was  going  to  need 
a  good  location  for  some  exterior  ranch  scenes  very  soon, 
and  the  place  he  had  half  decided  upon  did  not  alto- 


ROBERT    GRANT    BURNS       75 

gether  please  him.  He  inquired  about  roads  and  dis- 
tances, and  waddled  off  to  the  hotel  parlor  to  ask  Muriel 
Gay,  his  blond  leading  woman,  if  she  would  like  to  go 
out  among  the  natives  next  morning.  Also  he  wanted 
her  to  tell  him  more  about  that  picturesque  place  she 
and  Lee  Milligan  had  stumbled  upon  the  day  before, 
—  the  place  which  he  suspected  was  none  other  than 
the  Lazy  A. 

That  is  how  it  came  to  pass  that  Jean,  riding  out  with 
big  Lite  Avery  the  next  morning  on  a  little  private 
scouting-trip  of  their  own,  to  see  if  that  fat  moving- 
picture  man  was  making  free  with  the  stock  again,  met 
the  man  unexpectedly  half  a  mile  from  the  Bar  Noth- 
ing ranch-house. 

Along  every  trail  which  owns  certain  obstacles  to 
swift,  easy  passing,  there  are  places  commonly  spoken 
of  as  ^'  that "  place.  In  his  journey  to  the  Bar  Noth- 
ing, Robert  Grant  Burns  had  come  unwarned  upon  that 
sandy  hollow  which  experienced  drivers  approached 
with  a  mental  bracing  for  the  struggle  ahead,  and  with 
tightened  lines  and  whip  held  ready.  Even  then  they 
stuck  fast,  as  often  as  not,  if  the  load  were  heavy, 
though  Bar  Nothing  drivers  gaged  their  loads  with  that 
hollow  in  mind.  If  they  could  pull  through  there  with- 
out mishap,  they  might  feel  sure  of  having  no  trouble 
elsewhere. 


76        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

Eobert  Grant  Burns  had  come  into  the  hollow  un- 
suspectingly. He  had  been  careening  along  the  prnirie 
road  at  a  twenty-mile  pace,  his  mind  fixed  upon  hurry- 
ing through  his  interview  with  Carl  Douglas,  so  that 
he  would  have  time  to  stop  at  the  Lazy  A  on  the  way 
back  to  town.  He  wanted  to  take  a  few  exterior  ranch^ 
house  scenes  that  day,  for  Eobert  Grant  Burns  was  far 
more  energetic  than  his  bulk  would  lead  one  to  suppose. 
He  had  Pete  Lowry,  his  camera  man,  in  the  seat  beside 
him.  Back  in  the  tonneau  Muriel  Gay  and  her  mother, 
who  played  the  character  parts,  clung  to  Lee  Mulligan 
and  a  colorless  individual  w^ho  was  Lowry' s  assistant, 
and  gave  little  squeals  whenever  the  machine  struck  a 
bigger  bump  than  usuaL 

At  the  top  of  the  hill  which  guarded  the  deceptive 
hollow,  Eobert  Grant  Burns  grinned  over  his  shoulder 
at  his  character-woman.  "  Wait  till  we  start  back ; 
I'll  know  the  road  then,  and  we'll  do  some  traveling !  " 
he  promised  darkly,  and  laid  his  toe  lightly  on  the 
brake.  It  pleased  him  to  be  considered  a  dare-devil 
driver;  that  is  why  he  always  drove  whatever  machine 
carried  him.  They  went  lurching  down  the  curving 
grade  into  the  hollow,  and  struck  the  patch  of  sand  that 
had  worn  out  the  vocabularies  of  more  eloquent  men 
than  he.  Eobert  Grant  Burns  fed  more  gas,  and  the 
engine  kicked  and  groaned,  and  sent  the  wheels  bur- 


ROBERT    GRANT    BURNS       77 

rowing  like  moles  to  where  the  sand  was  deepest.  Axles 
under,  they  stuck  fast. 

When  Jean  and  Lite  came  loping  leisurely  down 
the  hill,  the  two  women  were  fraying  perfectly  good 
gloves  trying  to  pull  "  rabbit ''  brush  up  by  the  roots  to 
make  firmer  foothold  for  the  wheels.  Robert  Grant 
Burns  was  head-and-shoulders  under  the  car,  digging 
badger-like  with  his  paws  to  clear  the  front  axle,  and 
coming  up  now  and  then  to  wipe  the  perspiration  from 
his  eyes  and  puff  the  purple  out  of  his  complexion. 
Pete  Lowry  always  ducked  his  head  lower  over  the  jack 
when  he  saw  the  heaving  of  flesh  which  heralded  these 
resting  times,  so  that  the  boss  could  not  catch  him  laugh- 
ing. Lee  Milligan  was  scooping  sand  upon  the  other 
side  and  mumbling  to  himself,  with  a  glance  now  and 
then  at  the  trail,  in  the  hope  of  sighting  a  good  Samari- 
tan with  six  or  eight  mules,  perhaps.  Lee  thought  that 
it  would  take  about  that  many  mules  to  pull  them  out. 

The  two  riders  pulled  up,  smiling  pityingly,  just  as 
well-mounted  riders  invariably  smile  upon  stalled  auto- 
mobilists.  This  was  not  the  first  machine  that  had  come 
to  grief  in  that  hollow,  though  they  could  not  remember 
ever  to  have  seen  one  sunk  deeper  in  the  sand. 

"  I  guess  you  wouldn't  refuse  a  little  help,  about 
now,"  Lite  observed  casually  to  Lee,  who  was  most  in 
evidence. 


78        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

"We  wouldn't  refuse  a  little,  but  a  lot  is  what  we 
need,"  Lee  amended  glumly.  "  Any  ranch  within 
forty  miles  of  here?  We  need  about  twelve  good 
horses,  I  should  say."  Lee's  experience  with  sand  had 
been  unhappy,  and  his  knowledge  of  what  one  good 
horse  could  do  was  slight. 

"  Shall  we  snake  'em  out,  Jean  ? "  Lite  asked  her,  as 
if  he  himself  were  absolutely  indifferent  to  their  plight. 

"  Oh,  I  suppose  we  might  as  well.  We  can't  leave 
them  blocking  the  trail ;  somebody  might  want  to  drive 
past,"  Jean  told  him  in  much  the  same  tone,  just  to  tease 
Lee  Milligan,  who  was  looking  them  over  disparagingly. 

"  We'll  be  blocking  the  trail  a  good  long  while  if  we 
stay  here  till  you  move  us,"  snapped  Lee,  who  was 
rather  sensitive  to  tones. 

Then  Eobert  Grant  Burns  gave  a  heave  and  a  wrig- 
gle, and  came  up  for  air  and  a  look  around.  He  had 
been  composing  a  monologue  upon  the  subject  of  sand, 
and  he  had  not  noticed  that  strange  voices  were  speak- 
ing on  the  other  side  of  the  machine. 

"  Hello,  sis  —  How-de-do,  Miss,"  he  greeted  Jean 
guardedly,  with  a  hasty  revision  of  the  terms  when  he 
saw  how  her  eyebrows  pinched  together.  "  I  wonder 
if  you  could  tell  us  where  we  can  find  teams  to  pull  us 
out  of  this  mess.  I  don't  believe  this  old  junk-wagon 
is  ever  iroinc:  to  do  it  herself." 


ROBERT    GRANT    BURNS       70 

"  How  do  you  do,  Mr.  Burns  ?  Lite  and  I  offered  to 
take  you  out  on  solid  ground,  but  your  man  seemed  to 
think  we  couldn't  do  it." 

^^What  man  was  that?  Wasn't  me,  anyway.  I 
think  you  can  do  just  about  anything  you  start  out  to 
do,  if  you  ask  me." 

"  Thank  you,"  chilled  Jean,  and  permitted  Pard  to 
back  away  from  his  approach. 

"  Say,  you're  some  rider,"  he  praised  tactlessly,  and 
got  no  reply  whatever.  Jean  merely  turned  and  rode 
around  to  where  Lite  eased  his  long  legs  in  the  stirrups 
and  waited  her  pleasure. 

"  Shall  we  help  them  out,  Lite  ?  "  she  asked  distinctly. 
"  I  think  perhaps  we  ought  to ;  it's  a  long  walk  to 
town." 

*^  I  g-uess  v/e  better ;  won't  take  but  a  minute  to  tie 
on,"  Lite  agreed,  his  fingers  dropping  to  his  coiled  rope.' 
"  Seems  queer  to  me  that  folks  should  want  to  ride  in 
them  things  when  there's  plenty  of  good  horses  in  the 
country." 

*'  ]^o  accounting  for  tastes,  Lite,"  Jean  replied  cheer- 
fully. ^^Listen.  If  that  thin  man  will  start  the  en- 
gine,—  he  doesn't  weigh  more  than  half  as  much  as  you 
do,  Mr.  Burns, —  we'll  pull  you  out  on  solid  ground. 
And  if  you  have  occasion  to  cross  this  hollow  again,  I 
advise  you  to  keep  out  there  to  the  right.     There's  a 


80        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

little  sod  to  give  your  tires  a  better  grip.  It's  rough, 
but  you  could  make  it  all  right  if  you  drive  carefully, 
and  the  bunch  of  you  get  out  and  walk.  Don't  try  to 
keep  around  on  the  ridge;  there's  a  deep  washout  on 
each  side,  so  you  couldn't  possibly  make  it.  We  can't 
with  the  horses,  even."  Jean  did  not  know  that  there 
was  a  note  of  superiority  in  her  voice  when  she  spoke 
the  last  sentence,  but  her  listeners  winced  at  it.  Only 
Pete  Lowry  grinned  while  he  climbed  obediently  into 
the  machine  to  advance  his  spark  and  see  that  the  gears 
were  in  neutral. 

"  Don't  crank  up  till  we're  ready !  "  Lite  expostu- 
lated. "  These  cayuses  of  ours  are  pretty  sensible,  and 
they'll  stand  for  a  whole  lot ;  but  there's  a  limit.  Wait 
till  I  get  the  ropes  fixed,  before  you  start  the  engine. 
And  the  rest  of  you  all  be  ready  to  give  the  wheels  a 
lift.     You're  in  pretty  deep." 

When  Jean  dismounted  and  hooked  the  stirrup  over 
the  horn  so  that  she  could  tighten  the  cinch,  the  eyes 
of  Eobert  Grant  Bums  glistened  at  the  "  picture-stuff  " 
she  made.  He  glanced  eloquently  at  Pete,  and  Pete 
gave  a  twisted  smile  and  a  pantomime  of  turning  the 
camera-crank;  whereat  Robert  Grant  Burns  shook  his 
head  regretfully  and  groaned  again. 

"  Say,  if  I  had  a  leading  woman  — "  he  began  dis- 
contentedly, and  stopped  short;  for  Muriel  Gay  was 


ROBERT    GRANT   BURNS       81 

standing  quite  close,  and  even  through  her  grease-paint 
make-up  she  betrayed  the  fact  that  she  knew  exactly 
what  her  director  was  thinking,  had  seen  and  under- 
stood the  gesture  of  the  camera  man,  and  was  close  to 
tears  because  of  it  all. 

Muriel  Gay  was  a  conscientious  worker  who  tried 
hard  to  please  her  director.  Sometimes  it  seemed  to 
her  that  her  director  demanded  impossibilities  of  her; 
that  he  was  absolutely  soulless  where  picture-effects 
were  concerned.  Her  riding  had  all  along  been  a  sub- 
ject of  discord  between  them.  She  had  learned  to  ride 
very  well  along  the  bridle-paths  of  Golden  Gate  Park, 
but  Robert  Grant  Burns  seemed  to  expect  her  to  ride  — • 
well,  like  this  girl,  for  instance,  which  was  unjust. 

One  could  not  blame  her  for  glaring  jealously  while 
Jean  tightened  the  cinch  and  remounted,  tying  her  rope 
to  the  saddle  horn,  all  ready  to  pull;  with  her  muscles 
tensed  for  the  coming  struggle  wdth  the  sand, —  and 
perhaps  with  her  horse  as  well, —  and  with  every  line 
of  her  figure  showing  how  absolutely  at  home  she  w^as 
in  the  saddle,  and  how  sure  of  herself. 

"  I've  tied  my  rope,  Lite,"  Jean  drawled,  with  a  lit- 
tle laugh  at  what  might  happen. 

Lite  turned  his  face  toward  her.  "  You  better  not," 
he  warned.  "  Things  are  liable  to  start  a-popping 
when  that  engine  wakes  up." 


82        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

"Well,  then  I'll  want  both  hands  for  Pard.  IVe 
taken  a  couple  of  half -hitches,  anyway." 

"  You  folks  want  to  be  ready  at  the  wheels,"  Lite 
directed,  waiving  the  argument.  "  When  we  start,  you 
all  want  to  heave-ho  together.  Good  team-work  will 
do  it. 

"  All  set  ?  "  he  called  to  Jean,  when  Pete  Lowry  bent 
his  back  to  start  the  engine.  "  Business'U  be  pickin' 
up,  directly !  " 

"All  set,"  replied  Jean  cheerfully. 

It  seemed  then  that  everything  began  to  start  at  once, 
and  to  start  in  different  directions.  The  engine  snorted 
and  pounded  so  that  the  whole  machine  shook  with  ague. 
When  Pete  jumped  in  and  threw  in  the  clutch,  there 
was  a  backfire  that  sounded  like  the  crack  of  doom.  The 
two  horses  went  wild,  as  their  riders  had  half  expected 
them  to  do.  They  lunged  away  from  the  horror  be- 
hind them,  and  the  slack  ropes  tightened  with  a  jerk. 
Both  were  good  rope  horses,  and  the  strain  of  the  ropes 
almost  recalled  them  to  sanity  and  their  training;  at 
least  they  held  the  ropes  tight  for  a  few  seconds,  so  that 
the  machine  jumped  ahead  and  veered  toward  the 
firmer  soil  beside  the  trail,  in  response  to  Pete's  turn 
of  the  wheel. 

Then  Pard  looked  back  and  saw  the  thing  coming 
after  him,  and  tried  to  bolt.     When  he  found  that  he 


ROBERT    GRANT   BURNS       83 

could  not,  because  of  the  rope,  he  bucked  as  he  had  not 
donexsinceihe  was  a  half -broken  broncho.  That  started 
Lite  Avery's  horse  to  pitching ;  and  Pete,  absorbed  in 
watching  what  would  have  made  a  great  picture,  forgot 
to  shut  off  the  gas. 

Eobert  Grant  Burns  picked  himself  out  of  the  sand 
where  he  had  sprawled  at  the  first  wild  lunge  of  the  ma- 
chine, and  saw  Pete  Lowry,  humped  over  the  wheel  like 
any  speed  demon,  go  lurching  off  across  the  hollow  in 
the  wake  of  two  fear-crazed  animals,  that  threatened  at 
any  instant  to  bolt  off  at  an  angle  that  would  overturn 
the  car. 

Then  Lite  let  his  rope  slip  from  the  saddle-horn  and 
spurred  his  horse  to  one  side,  out  of  the  danger  zone  of 
the  other,  while  he  felt  frantically  in  his  pockets  for  his 
knife. 

"  Don't  you  cut  my  rope,"  Jean  warned,  when  she 
saw  him  come  plunging  toward  her,  knife  in  hand. 
"  This  is —  fine  training  —  for  Pard !  " 

Pete  came  to  himself,  then,  and  killed  the  engine 
before  he  landed  in  the  bottom  of  a  yawning,  water- 
washed  hole,  and  Lite  rode  close  and  slashed  Jean's 
rope,  in  spite  of  her  protest ;  whereupon  Pard  went  off 
up  the  slope  as  though  witches  were  riding  him 
hard. 

At  long  rifle  range,  he  circled  and  faced  the  thing  that 


84        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY    A 

had  scared  him  so,  and  after  a  little  Jean  persuaded 
him  to  go  back  as  far  as  the  trail.  Nearer  he  would  not 
stir,  so  she  waited  there  for  Lite. 

"  N^ever  even  thanked  us,"  Lite  grumbled  when  he 
came  up,  his  mouth  stretched  in  a  wide  smile.  "  That 
girl  with  the  kalsomine  on  her  face  made  remarks  about 
folks  butting  in.  And  the  fat  man  talked  into  his 
double  chin;  dunno  what  all  he  was  saying.  Here's 
what's  left  of  your  rope.  I'll  get  you  another  one, 
Jean.  I  was  afraid  that  gazabo  was  going  to  run  over 
you,  is  why  I  cut  it." 

"  What's  the  matter  over  there  ?  Aren't  they  glad 
they're  out  of  the  sand  ? "  Jean  held  her  horse  quiet 
while  she  studied  the  buzzing  group. 

"  Something  busted.  I  guess  we  done  some  dam- 
age." Lite  grinned  and  watched  them  over  his  shoul- 
der. 

"  You  needn't  go  any  further  with  me,  Lite.  That 
fat  man's  the  one  that  had  the  cattle.  I  am  going  over 
to  the  ranch  for  awhile,  but  don't  tell  Aunt  Ella."  She 
turned  to  ride  on  up  the  hill  toward  the  Lazy  A,  but 
stopped  for  another  look  at  the  perturbed  motorists. 
"  Well  anyway,  we  snaked  them  out  of  the  sand,  didn't 
we,  Lite  ? " 

"  We  sure  did,"  Lite  chuckled.  "  They  don't  seem 
thankful,  but  I  guess  they  ain't  any  worse  off  than  they 


ROBERT    GRANT    BURNS        85 

was  before.     Anyway,  it  serves  them  right.     TheyVe 
no  business  here  acting  fresh." 

Lite  said  that  because  he  was  not  given  the  power 
to  peer  into  the  future,  and  so  could  not  know  that 
Fate  herself  had  sent  Robert  Grant  Burns  into  their 
lives ;  and  that,  by  a  somewhat  roundabout  method,  she 
was  going  to  use  the  Great  Western  Film  Company  and 
Jean  and  himself  for  her  servants  in  doing  a  work 
which  Fate  had  set  herself  to  do. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

JEAN    SPOILS    SOMETHING 

JEAN  found  tlie  padlock  key  where  she  had  hidden 
it  nnder  a  rock  ten  feet  from  the  door,  and  let 
herself  into  her  room.  The  peaceful  familiarity  of 
its  four  walls,  and  the  cheerful  patch  of  sunlight  lying 
warm  upon  the  faded  rag  carpet,  gave  her  the  feeling 
of  security  and  of  comfort  Avhich  she  seldom  felt  else- 
where. 

She  wandered  aimlessly  around  the  rooni,  brushing 
the  dust  from  her  books  and  straightening  a  tiny  fold 
in  the  cradle  quilt.  She  ran  an  investigative  forefinger 
along  the  seat  of  her  father's  saddle,  brought  the  finger 
away  dusty,  pulled  one  of  the  stockings  from  the 
overflowing  basket  and  used  it  for  a  dust  cloth.  She 
wiped  and  polished  the  stamped  leather  with  a  pains- 
taking tenderness  that  had  in  it  a  good  deal  of  yearn- 
ing, and  finally  left  it  with  a  gesture  of  hopelessness. 

She  went  next  to  her  desk  and  fumbled  the  quirt  that 
lay  there  still.  Then  she  pulled  out  the  old  ledger, 
picked  up  a  pencil,  and  began  to  write,  sitting  on  the 


JEAN    SPOILS    SOMETHING     87 

arm  of  an  old,  cane-seated  chair  while  she  did  so.  As 
I  told  you  before,  Jean  never  wrote  anything  in  that 
book  except  when  her  moods  demanded  erpression  of 
some  sort;  when  she  did  write,  she  said  exactly  what 
she  thought  and  felt  at  the  time.  So  if  you  are  per- 
mitted to  know  what  she  wrote  at  this  time,  you  will 
have  had  a  peep  into  Jean's  hidden,  inner  life  that 
none  of  her  world  save  Lite  knew  anything  about.  She 
wrote  rapidly,  and  she  did  not  always  take  the  trouble 
to  finish  her  sentences  properly, —  as  if  she  never  could 
quite  keep  pace  with  her  thoughts.  So  this  is  what 
that  page  held  when  finally  she  slammed  the  book  shut 
and  slid  it  back  into  the  desk : 

I  don't  know  what's  the  matter  with  me  lately.  I  feel 
as  if  I  wanted  to  shoot  somebody,  or  rob  a  bank  or  run 
away — 'I  guess  it's  the  old  trouble  nagging  at  me.  I  know 
dad  never  did  it.  I  don't  know  why,  but  I  know  it  just  the 
same  —  and  I  know  Uncle  Carl  laiows  it  too.  I'd  like  to 
take  out  hia  brain  and  put  it  into  some  scientific  machine 
that  would  squeeze  out  his  thoughts  —  hope  it  wouldn't  hurt 
him  —  I'd  give  him  ether,  maybe.  What  I  want  is  money 
—  enough  to  buy  back  this  place  and  the  stock.  I  don't  be- 
lieve Uncle  Carl  spent  as  much  defending  dad  as  he  claims 
he  did  — •  not  enough  to  take  the  whole  ranch  anyway.  If 
I  had  money  I'd  find  Art  Osgood  if  I  had  to  hunt  from 
Alaska  to  Africa  —  don't  believe  he  went  to  Alaska  at  all. 
Uncle  Carl  thinks  so.  .  .  .  I'd  like  the  price  of  that  ma- 


88        JEAN   OF    THE   LAZY   A 

chin©  I  helped  drag  out  of  the  sand  —  some  people  can 
have  anything  they  want  but  all  I  want  is  dad  back,  and  this 
place  the  way  it  was  before.  ... 

If  I  had  any  brains  I  could  write  something  wonderful 
and  be  rich  and  famous  and  do  the  things  I  want  to  do  — 
but  there^s  no  profit  in  just  feeling  wonderful  things;  if  I 
could  make  the  world  see  and  feel  what  I  see  and  feel  — 
when  I'm  here,  or  riding  alone.  .  .  . 

If  I  could  find  Art  Osgood  I  believe  I  could  make  him 
tell  —  I  know  he  knows  something,  even  if  he  didn't  do  it 
himself.  I  believe  he  did  —  But  what  can  you  do  when 
you're  a  woman  and  haven't  any  money  and  must  stay  where 
you're  put  and  can't  even  get  out  and  do  the  little  you  might 
do,  because  somebody  must  have  you  around  to  lean  on  and 
tell  their  troubles  to.  ...  I  don't  blame  Aunt  Ella  so  much 
—  but  thank  goodness,  I  can  do  without  a  shoulder  to  weep 
on,  anyway.  What's  life  for  if  you've  got  to  spend  your 
days  hopping  round  and  round  in  a  cage.  It  wouldn't  be 
a  cage  if  I  could  have  dad  back  —  I'd  be  doing  things  for 
him  all  the  time  and  that  would  make  life  worth  while. 
Poor  dad  —  four  more  years  is  —  I  can't  think  about  it.  I'll 
go  crazy  if  I  do  — 

It  was  there  that  she  stopped  and  slammed  the  book 
shut,  and  pushed  it  back  out  of  sight  in  the  desk.  She 
picked  up  her  hat  and  gloves,  and  went  out  with 
blurred  eyes,  and  began  to  climb  the  bluff  above  the  lit- 
tle spring,  where  a  faint,  little-used  trail  led  to  the 
benchland  above.     By  following  a  rock  ledge  to  where 


JEAN    SPOILS    SOMETHING    89 

it  was  broken,  and  climbing  through  the  crevice  to 
where  the  trail  marked  faintly  the  way  to  the  top,  one 
could  in  a  few  minutes  leave  the  Lazy  A  coulee  out  of 
sight  below,  and  stand  on  a  high  level  where  the  winds 
blew  free  from  the  mountains  in  the  west  to  the  moun- 
tains in  the  east. 

Some  day,  it  was  predicted,  the  benchland  would  be 
cut  into  squares  and  farmed, —  some  day  when  the  gov- 
ernment brought  to  reality  a  long-talked-of  irrigation 
project.  But  in  the  meantime,  the  land  lay  unfenced 
and  free.  One  could  look  far  away  to  the  north,  and 
at  certain  times  see  the  smoke  of  passing  trains  through 
the  valley  off  there.  One  could  look  south  to  the  dis- 
tant river  bluffs,  and  east  and  west  to  the  mountains. 
Jean  often  climbed  the  bluff  just  for  the  wide  outlook 
she  gained.  The  cage  did  not  seem  so  small  when  she 
could  stand  up  there  and  tire  her  eyes  with  looking. 
Life  did  not  seem  quite  so  purposeless,  and  she  could 
nearly  always  find  little  whispers  of  hope  in  the  winds 
that  blew  there. 

She  walked  aimlessly  and  yet  with  a  subconscious 
purpose  for  ten  minutes  or  so,  and  her  face  was  turned 
directly  toward  the  eastern  hills.  She  stopped  on  the 
edge  of  the  bluff  that  broke  abruptly  there,  and  sat 
down  and  stared  at  the  soft  purple  of  the  hills  and  the 
soft  green  of  the  nearer  slopes,  and  at  the  peaceful  blue 


90        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

of  the  sky  arched  over  it  all.  Her  eyes  cleared  of  their 
troubled  look  and  grew  dreamy.  Her  mouth  lost  its 
tenseness  and  softened  to  a  half  smile.  She  was  not 
looking  now  into  the  past  that  was  so  full  of  heart- 
break, but  into  the  future  as  hope  pictured  it  for  her. 

She  was  seeing  the  Lazy  A  alive  again  and  all  astir 
with  the  business  of  life ;  and  her  father  saddling  Sioux 
and  riding  out  to  look  after  the  stock.  She  was  seeing 
herself  riding  with  him, —  or  else  cooking  the  things 
he  liked  best  for  his  dinner  when  he  came  back  hungry. 
She  sat  there  for  a  long,  long  while  and  never  moved. 

A  sparrow  hawk  swooped  down  quite  close  to  Jean 
and  then  shot  upward  with  a  little  brown  bird  in  its 
claws,  and  startled  her  out  of  her  castle  building.  -She 
felt  a  hot  anger  against  the  hawk,  which  was  like  the 
sudden  grasp  of  misfortune;  and  a  quick  sympathy 
with  the  bird,  which  was  like  herself  and  dad,  caught 
unawares  and  held  helpless.  But  she  did  not  move, 
and  the  hawk  circled  and  came  back  on  his  way  to  the 
nesting-place  in  the  trees  along  the  creek  below.  He 
came  quite  close,  and  Jean  shot  him  as  he  lifted  his 
wings  for  a  higher  flight.  The  hawk  dropped  head 
foremost  to  the  grass  and  lay  there  crumpled  and  quiet. 

Jean  put  back  her  gun  in  its  holster  and  went  over 
to  where  the  hawk  lay.  The  little  brown  bird  flut- 
tered terrifiedly  and  gave  a  piteous,  small  chirp  when 


JEAN    SPOILS    SOMETHING    91 

her  hand  closed  over  it,  and  then  lay  quite  still  in  her 
cupped  palms  and  blinlved  up  at  her. 

Jean  cuddled  it  up  against  her  cheek,  and  talked  to 
it  and  pitied  it  and  promised  it  much  in  the  way  of 
fat  little  bugs  and  a  warm  nest  and  her  tender  regard. 
For  the  hawk  she  had  no  pity,  nor  a  thought  beyond 
the  one  investigative  glance  she  gave  its  body  to  make 
sure  that  she  had  hit  it  where  she  meant  to  hit  it.  Lite 
had  taught  her  to  shoot  like  that, —  straight  and  quick. 
Lite  was  a  man  who  trimmed  life  down  to  the  essen- 
tials, and  he  had  long  ago  impressed  it  upon  her  that 
if  she  could  not  shoot  quickly,  and  hit  where  she  aimed, 
there  was  not  much  use  in  her  attempting  to  shoot  at 
all.  Jean  proved  by  her  scant  interest  in  the  hawk 
how  well  she  had  learned  the  lesson,  and  how  sure  she 
was  of  hitting  where  she  aimed. 

The  little  brown  bird  had  been  gashed  in  the  breast 
by  a  sharp  talon.  Jean  was  much  concerned  over  the 
wound,  even  though  it  did  not  reach  any  vital  organ. 
She  was  afraid  of  septic  poisoning,  she  told  the  bird; 
but  added  comfortingly :  "  There  —  you  needn't 
worry  one  minute  over  that.  I'm  almost  sure  there's 
a  bottle  of  peroxide  down  at  the  house,  that  isn't  spoiled. 
We'll  go  and  put  some  on  it  right  away ;  and  then  we'll 
go  bug-hunting.  I  believe  I  know  where  there's  the 
fattest,  juiciest  bugs !  "     She  cuddled  the  bird  against 


92        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

her  cheek,  and  started  back  across  the  wide  point  of 
the  benchland  to  where  the  trail  led  down  the  bluff  to 
the  house. 

She  was  wholly  absorbed  in  the  trouble  of  the  little 
brown  bird;  and  the  trail,  following  a  crevice  through 
the  rocks  and  later  winding  along  behind  some  scant 
bushes,  partially  concealed  the  buildings  and  the  house 
yard  from  view  until  one  was  well  down  into  the  coulee. 
So  it  was  not  until  she  was  at  the  spring,  looking  at  the 
moist  earth  there  for  fat  bugs  for  the  bird,  that  she  had 
any  inkling  of  visitors.  Then  she  heard  voices  and 
went  quickly  around  the  corner  of  the  house  toward  the 
sound. 

It  seemed  to  her  that  she  was  lately  fated  to  come 
plump  into  the  middle  of  that  fat  Mr.  Burns'  unau- 
thorized picture-making.  The  first  thing  she  saw  when 
she  rounded  the  corner  was  the  camera  perched  high 
upon  its  tripod  and  staring  at  her  with  its  one  round 
eye;  and  the  humorous-eyed  Pete  Lowry  turning  a 
crank  at  the  side  and  counting  in  a  whisper.  Close 
beside  her  the  two  women  were  standing  in  animated 
argument  which  they  carried  on  in  undertones  with 
many  gestures  to  point  theix  meaning. 

"  Hey,  you're  in  the  scene !  "  called  Pete  Lowry,  and 
abruptly  stopped  counting  and  turning  the  crank. 

"  You're  in  the  scene,  sister.     Step  over  here  to  one 


JEAN    SPOILS    SOMETHING    93 

side,  will  you  ? "  The  fat  director  waved  his  pink- 
cameoed  hand  impatiently. 

An  old  bench  had  been  placed  beside  the  house,  un- 
der a  window.  Jean  backed  a  step  and  sat  down  upon 
the  bench,  and  looked  from  one  to  the  other.  The  two 
women  glanced  at  her  wide-eyed  and  moved  away  with 
mutual  embracings.  Jean  lifted  her  hands  and  looked 
at  the  soft  little  crest  and  beady  eyes  of  the  bird,  to  make 
sure  that  it  was  not  disturbed  by  these  strangers,  be- 
fore she  gave  her  attention  to  the  expostulating  Mr. 
Burns. 

"  Did  I  spoil  something  ? "  she  inquired  casually, 
and  watched  curiously  the  pulling  of  many  feet  of  nar- 
row film  from  the  camera. 

"  About  fifteen  feet  of  good  scene,"  Pete  Lowry  told 
her  dryly,  but  with  that  queer,  half  smile  twisting  his 
lips. 

Jean  looked  at  him  and  decided  that,  save  for  the 
company,  he  kept,  which  made  of  him  a  latent  enemy, 
she  might  like  that  lean  man  in  the  red  sweater  who 
wore  a  pencil  over  one  ear  and  was  always  smiling  to 
himself  about  something.  But  what  she  did  was  to 
cross  her  feet  and  murmur  a  sympathetic  sentence  to 
the  little  brown  bird.  Inwardly  she  resented  deeply 
this  bold  trespass  of  Robert  Grant  Bums;  but  she 
meant  to  guard  against  making  herself  ridiculous  again. 


94        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

She  meant  to  be  sure  of  her  ground  before  she  ordered 
them  off.  The  memory  of  her  humiliation  before  the 
supposed  rustlers  was  too  vivid  to  risk  a  repetition  of 
the  experience. 

"  When  you're  thoroughly  rested,"  said  Eobert 
Grant  Bums,  in  the  tone  that  would  have  shriveled  the 
soul  of  one  of  his  actors,  "  we'd  like  to  make  that  scene 
over." 

"  Thank  you.  I  am  pretty  tired,"  she  said  in  that 
soft,  drawly  voice  that  could  hide  so  effectually  her 
meaning.  She  leaned  her  head  against  the  wall  and 
gave  a  luxurious  sigh,  and  crossed  her  feet  the  other 
way.  She  believed  that  she  knew  why  Robert  Grant 
Burns  was  growing  so  red  in  the  face  and  stepping  about 
so  uneasily,  and  why  the  women  were  looking  at  her 
like  that.  Very  likely  they  expected  her  to  prove  her- 
self crude  and  uncivilized,  but  she  meant  to  disaj)point 
them  even  while  she  made  them  all  the  trouble  she 
could. 

She  pushed  back  her  hat  until  its  crown  rested 
against  the  rough  boards,  and  cuddled  the  little  brown 
bird  against  her  cheek  again,  and  talked  to  it  ca- 
ressingly. Though  she  seemed  unconscious  of  his  pres- 
ence, she  heard  every  word  that  Robert  Grant  Bums 
was  muttering  to  himself.  Some  of  the  words  were 
plain,  man-sized  swearing,  if  she  were  any  judge  of 


JEAN    SPOILS    SOMETHING    95 

language.  It  occurred  to  her  that  she  really  ought  to 
go  and  find  that  peroxide,  but  she  could  not  forego  the 
pleasure  of  irritating  this  man. 

"  I  always  supposed  that  fat  men  were  essentially 
sweet-tempered/'  she  observed  to  the  world  in  general, 
when  the  mutterings  ceased  for  a  moment. 

"  Gee !  I'd  like  to  make  that/'  Pete  Lowry  said  in  an 
undertone  to  his  assistant. 

Jean  did  not  know  that  he  referred  to  herself  and 
the  unstudied  picture  she  made,  sitting  there  with  her 
hat  pushed  back,  and  the  little  bird  blinking  at  her 
from  between  her  cupped  palms.  But  she  looked  at 
him  curiously,  with  an  impulse  to  ask  questions  about 
what  he  was  doing  with  that  queer-looking  camera,  and 
how  he  could  inject  motion  into  photography.  While 
she  watched,  he  drew  out  a  narrow,  gray  strip  of  film 
and  made  mysterious  markings  upon  it  with  the  pencil, 
which  he  afterwards  thrust  absent-mindedly  behind  his 
ear.  He  closed  a  small  door  in  the  side  of  the  camera, 
placed  his  palm  over  the  lens  and  turned  the  little 
crank  several  times  around.  Then  he  looked  at  Jean, 
and  from  her  to  the  director. 

Kobert  Grant  Bums  gave  a  sweeping,  downward 
gesture  with  both  hands, —  a  gesture  which  his  com- 
pany knew  well, —  and  came  toward  Jean. 

"  You  may  not  know  it,"  he  began  in  a  repressed 


96        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY    A 

tone,  "  but  we're  in  a  hurry.  We've  got  work  to  do. 
We  ain't  here  on  any  pleasure  excursion,  and  you'll  be 
doing  me  a  favor  by  getting  out  of  the  scene  so  we  can 
go  on  with  our  work." 

Jean  sat  still  upon  tne  bench  and  looked  at  him. 
"  I  suppose  so ;  but  why  should  I  be  doing  you  favors  ? 
You  haven't  seemed  to  appreciate  them,  so  far.  Of 
course,  I  dislike  to  seem  disobliging,  or  anything  like 
that,  but  your  tone  and  manner  would  not  make  any 
one  very  enthusiastic  about  pleasing  you,  Mr.  Burns. 
In  fact,  I  don't  see  why  you  aren't  apologizing  for  being 
here,  instead  of  ordering  me  about  as  if  I  worked  for 
you.  This  bench  —  is  my  bench.  This  ranch  —  is 
where  I  have  lived  nearly  all  my  life.  I  hate  to  seem 
vain,  Mr.  Bums,  but  at  the  same  time  I  think  it  is 
perfectly  lovely  of  me  to  explain  that  I  have  a  right 
here;  and  I  consider  myself  an  angel  of  patience  and 
graciousness  and  many  other  rare  virtues,  because  I 
have  not  even  hinted  that  you  are  once  more  taking 
liberties  with  other  people's  property."  She  looked  at 
him  with  a  smile  at  the  corners  of  her  eyes  and  just 
easing  the  firmness  of  her  lips,  as  if  the  humor  of  the 
situation  was  beginning  to  appeal  to  her. 

"  If  you  would  stop  dancing  about,  and  let  your 
naturally  sweet  disposition  have  a  chance,  and  would 
explain  just  why  you  are  here  and  what  you  want  to  do. 


JEAN    SPOILS    SOMETHING    97 

and  would  ask  me  nicely, —  it  might  help  you  more 
than  to  get  apoplexy  over  it." 

The  two  women  exclaimed  under  their  breaths  to 
each  other  and  moved  farther  away,  as  if  from  an  im- 
pending explosion.  The  assistant  camera  man  gurgled 
and  turned  his  back  abruptly.  Lee  Milligan,  wander- 
ing up  from  the  stables,  stopped  and  stared.  ISTo  one, 
within  the  knowledge  of  those  present,  had  ever  spoken 
so  to  Robert  Grant  Bums ;  no  one  had  ever  dreamed  of 
speaking  thus  to  him.  They  had  seen  him  when  rage 
had  mastered  him  and  for  slighter  cause ;  it  was  not  an 
experience  that  one  would  care  to  repeat. 

Robert  Grant  Burns  walked  up  to  Jean  as  if  he  meant 
to  lift  her  from  the  bench  and  hurl  her  by  sheer  brute 
force  out  of  his  way.  He  stopped  so  close  to  her  that 
his  shadow  covered  her. 

'^  Are  you  going  to  get  out  of  the  way  so  we  can  go 
on  ? "  he  asked,  in  the  tone  of  one  who  gives  a  last 
merciful  chance  of  escape  from  impending  doom. 

"  Are  you  going  to  explain  why  you're  here,  and 
apologize  for  your  tone  and  manner,  which  are  ex- 
tremely rude  ?  "  Jean  did  not  pay  his  rage  the  com- 
pliment of  a  glance  at  him.  She  was  looking  at  the 
dainty  beak  of  the  little  brown  bird,  and  was  telling 
herself  that  she  could  not  be  bullied  into  losing  control 
of  herself.     These  two  women  should  not  have  the  sat- 


98        JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY    A 

isf action  of  calling  her  a  crude,  ignorant,  country  girl ; 
and  Eobert  Grant  Burns  should  not  have  the  triumph 
of  browbeating  her  into  yielding  one  inch  of  ground. 
She  forced  herself  to  observe  the  wonderfully  delicate 
feathers  on  the  bird's  head.  It  seemed  more  content 
now  in  the  little  nest  her  two  palms  had  made  for  it. 
Its  heart  did  not  flutter  so  much,  and  she  fancied  that 
the  tiny,  bead-like  eyes  were  softer  in  their  bright  re- 
gard of  her. 

Robert  Grant  Burns  came  to  a  pause.  Jean  sensed 
that  he  was  waiting  for  some  reply,  and  she  looked  up 
at  him.  His  hand  was  just  reaching  out  to  her  shoul- 
der, but  it  dropped  instead  to  his  coat  pocket  and  fum- 
bled for  his  handkerchief.  Her  eyes  strayed  to  Pete 
Lowry.  He  was  looking  upward  with  that  measuring 
glance  which  belongs  to  his  profession,  estimating  the 
length  of  time  the  light  would  be  suitable  for  the  scone 
he  had  focussed.  She  followed  his  glance  to  where  the 
shadow  of  the  kitchen  had  crept  closer  to  the  bench. 
Jean  was  not  stupid,  and  she  had  passed  through  the 
various  stages  of  the  kodak  fever;  she  guessed  what 
was  in  the  mind  of  the  operator,  and  when  she  met  his 
eyes  full,  she  smiled  at  him  sympathetically. 

"  I  should  dearly  love  to  watch  you  work,''  she  said 
to  him  frankly.  ^'  But  you  see  how  it  is ;  Mr.  Burns 
hasn't  got  hold  of  himself  yet.     If  he  comes  to  his 


JEAN    SPOILS    SOMETHING    99 

senses  before  he  has  a  stroke  of  apoplexy,  will  you  show 
me  how  you  run  that  thing  ?  " 

"You  bet  I  will/'  the  red-sweatered  one  promised 
her  cheerfully. 

"  How  much  longer  will  it  be  before  this  bench  is  in 
the  shade  ?  "  she  asked  him  next. 

"Half  an  hour, —  maybe  a  little  longer.'^  Pete 
glanced  again  anxiously  upward. 

"  And  —  how  long  do  these  spasms  usually  last  ?  " 
Jean's  head  tilted  toward  Eobert  Grant  Burns  as 
impersonally  as  if  she  were  indicating  a  horse  with 
colic. 

But  the  camera  man  had  gone  as  far  as  was  wise, 
if  he  cared  to  continue  working  for  Burns,  and  he  made 
no  reply  whatever.  So  Jean  turned  her  attention  to 
the  man  whose  bulk  shaded  her  from  the  sun,  and 
whose  remarks  would  have  been  w^holly  unforgivable 
had  she  not  chosen  to  ignore  them. 

"  If  you  really  are  anxious  to  go  on  making  pictures, 
why  don't  you  stop  all  that  ranting  and  be  sensible 
about  it  ?  "  she  asked  him.  "  You  can't  bully  me  into 
being  afraid  of  you,  you  know.  And  really,  you  are 
making  an  awful  spectacle  of  yourself,  going  on  like 
that." 

"  Listen  here !  Are  you  going  to  get  off  that  bench 
and  out  of  the  scene  ?  "     By  a  tremendous  effort  Robert 


100      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

Grant  Bums  spoke  that  sentence  with  a  husky  kind  of 
calm. 

"  That  all  depends  upon  yourself,  Mr.  Burns.  First, 
I  want  to  know  by  what  right  you  come  here  with  your 
picture-making.  You  haven't  explained  that  yet,  you 
know." 

The  highest  paid  director  of  the  Great  Western  Film 
Company  looked  at  her  long.  With  her  head  tilted 
back,  Jean  returned  the  look. 

"  Oh,  all  right  —  all  right,''  he  surrendered  finally. 
"  Eead  that  paper.  That  ought  to  satisfy  you  that  we 
ain't  trespassing  here  or  anywhere  else.  And  if  you'd 
kindly," —  and  Mr.  Burns  emphasized  the  word 
"  kindly," — "  remove  yourself  to  some  other  spot  that 
is  just  as  comfortable  — " 

Jean  did  not  even  hear  him,  once  she  had  the  paper 
in  her  hands  and  had  begun  to  read  it.  So  Robert 
Grant  Burns  folded  his  arms  across  his  heaving  chest 
and  watched  her  and  studied  her  and  measured  her 
with  his  mind  while  she  read.  He  saw  the  pulling  to- 
gether of  her  eyebrows,  and  the  pinching  of  her  under- 
lip  between  her  teeth.  He  saw  how  she  unconsciously 
sheltered  the  little  brown  bird  under  her  left  hand  in 
her  lap  because  she  must  hold  the  paper  with  the  other, 
and  he  quite  forgot  his  anger  against  her. 

Sitting  so,  she  made  a  picture  that  appealed  to  him. 


JEAN    SPOILS    SOMETHING     101 

Had  you  asked  him  why,  he  would' &ave*' said  tha{  she 
was  the  type  that  would  photograph' w^Mj  iiid  it.Vao  ^fe 
had  a  screen  personality;  which  would  have  been  high 
praise  indeed,  coming  from  him. 

Jean  read  the  brief  statement  that  in  consideration 
of  a  certain  sum  paid  to  him  that  day  by  Robert  G. 
Burns,  her  uncle,  Carl  Douglas,  thereby  gave  the  said 
Eobeii;  G.  Burns  permission  to  use  the  Lazy  A  ranch 
and  anything  upon  it  or  in  any  manner  pertaining  to 
it,  for  the  purpose  of  making  motion  pictures.  It  was 
plainly  set  forth  that  Robert  G.  Burns  should  be  held 
responsible  for  any  destruction  of  or  damage  to  the 
property,  and  that  he  might,  for  the  sum  named,  use 
any  cattle  bearing  the  Lazy  A  or  Bar  O  brands  for  the 
making  of  pictures,  so  long  as  he  did  them  no  injury 
and  returned  them  in  good  condition  to  the  range  from 
which  he  had  gathered  them. 

Jean  recognized  her  uncle's  ostentatious  attempt  at 
legal  phraseology  and  knew,  even  without  the  evidence 
of  his  angular  writing,  that  the  document  was  genuine. 
She  knew  also  that  Robert  Grant  Burns  was  justified  in 
ordering  her  off  that  bench;  she  had  no  right  there, 
where  he  was  making  his  pictures.  She  forced  back 
the  bitterness  that  filled  her  because  of  her  own  help- 
lessness, and  folded  the  paper  carefully.  The  little 
brown  bird  chirped  shrilly  and  fluttered  a  feeble  pro- 


102      JEAN   OF   THE    LAZY  A 

test*  'imen  shie  toh^  away  her  sheltering  hand.  Jean 
rpturiied  tbe.p^jier  h^stilj  to  its  owner  and  took  up  the 
bird. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon  for  delaying  your  work/'  she 
said  coldly,  and  rose  from  the  bench.  "  But  you  might 
have  explained  your  presence  in  the  first  place."  She 
wrapped  the  bird  carefully  in  her  handkerchief  so  that 
only  its  beak  and  its  bright  eyes  were  uncovered,  pulled 
her  hat  forward  upon  her  head,  and  walked  away  from 
them  down  the  path  to  the  stables. 

Eobert  Grant  Burns  turned  slowly  on  his  heels  and 
watched  her  go,  and  until  she  had  led  out  her  horse, 
mounted  and  ridden  away,  he  said  never  a  word.  Pete 
Lowry  leaned  an  elbow  upon  the  camera  and  watched 
her  also,  until  she  passed  out  of  sight  around  the  corner 
of  the  dilapidated  calf  shed,  and  he  was  as  silent  as 
the  director. 

"  Some  rider,"  Lee  Milligan  commented  to  the  as- 
sistant camera  man,  and  without  any  tangible  reason 
regretted  that  he  had  spoken. 

Eobert  Grant  Burns  turned  harshly  to  the  two 
women.  "  Now  then,  you  two  go  through  that  scene 
again.  And  when  you  put  out  your  hand  to  stop 
Muriel,  don't  grab  at  her,  ]\Irs.  Gay.  Hesitate !  You 
want  your  son  to  get  the  w^arning,  but  you've  got  your 
doubts  about  letting  her  take  the  risk  of  going.     And, 


JEAN    SPOILS    SOMETHING    103 

Gay,  when  you  read  the  letter,  try  and  show  a  little 
emotion  in  your  face.  You  saw  how  that  girl  looked 
—  see  if  you  can't  get  that  hurt,  bitter  look  gradually ^ 
as  you  read.  The  way  she  got  it.  Put  in  more  feel- 
ing and  not  so  much  motion.  You  know  what  I  mean ; 
you  saw  the  girl.  That's  the  stuff  that  gets  over. 
Ready  ?     Camera !  " 


CHAPTEE  IX 

A   MAN-SIZED    JOB    FOR    JEAN 

JEAN  was  just  returning  wet-lashed  from  burying 
the  little  brown  bird  under  a  wild-rose  bush  near 
the  creek.  She  had  known  all  along  that  it  would  die ; 
everything  that  she  took  any  interest  in  turned  out 
badly,  it  seemed  to  her.  The  wonder  was  that  the  bird 
had  lived  so  long  after  she  had  taken  it  under  her  pro- 
tection. 

All  that  day  her  Aunt  Ella  had  worn  a  wet  towel 
turban-wise  upon  her  head,  and  the  look  of  a  martyr 
about  to  enter  a  den  of  lions.  Add  that  to  the  habitual 
atmosphere  of  injury  which  she  wore,  and  Aunt  Ella 
was  not  what  one  might  call  a  cheerful  companion. 
Besides,  the  appearance  of  the  wet  towel  was  a  danger 
signal  to  Jean's  conscience,  and  forbade  any  thought 
of  saddling  Pard  and  riding  away  from  the  Bar  Noth- 
ing into  her  own  dream  world  and  the  great  outdoors. 
Jean's  conscience  commanded  her  instead  to  hang  her 
riding-clothes  in  the  closet  and  wear  striped  percale 
and  a  gingham  apron,  which  she  hated;  and  to  sweep 
and  dust  and  remember  not  to  whistle,  and  to  look  sym- 
pathetic,—  which  she  was  not,  particularly ;  and  to  ask 


A   MAN-SIZED    JOB  105 

her  Aunt  Ella  frequently  if  she  felt  any  better,  and  if 
there  was  anything  Jean  could  do  for  her.  There  never 
was  anything  she  could  do,  but  conscience  and  custom 
required  her  to  observe  the  ceremony  of  asking.  Aunt 
Ella  found  some  languid  satisfaction  in  replying  dolor- 
ously that  there  was  nothing  that  anybody  could  do, 
and  that  her  part  in  life  seemed  to  be  to  suffer. 

You  may  judge  what  Jean's  mood  was  that  day, 
when  you  are  told  that  she  came  to  the  point,  not  an 
hour  before  the  bird  died,  of  looking  at  her  aunt  with 
that  little  smile  at  the  comers  of  her  eyes  and  just 
easing  her  lips.  "  Well,  you  certainly  play  your  part 
in  life  with  a  heap  of  enthusiasm,"  she  had  replied,  and 
had  gone  out  into  the  kitchen  and  whistled  when  she 
did  not  feel  in  the  least  like  whistling.  Her  conscience 
knew  Jean  pretty  well,  and  did  not  attempt  to  reprove 
her  for  what  she  had  done. 

Then  she  found  the  bird  dead  in  the  little  nest  she 
had  made  for  it,  and  things  went  all  wrong. 

She  was  returning  from  the  burial  of  the  bird,  and 
was  trying  to  force  herself  back  to  her  normal  attitude 
of  philosophic  calm,  when  she  saw  her  Uncle  Carl  sit- 
ting on  the  edge  of  the  front  porch,  with  his  elbows 
resting  loosely  upon  his  knees,  his  head  bowed,  and  his 
boot-heel  digging  a  rude  trench  in  the  hard-packed 
earth. 


106      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

The  sight  of  him  incensed  her  suddenly.  Once  more 
she  wished  that  she  might  get  at  his  brain  and  squeeze 
out  his  thoughts ;  and  it  never  occurred  to  her  that  she 
would  probably  have  found  them  extremely  common- 
place thoughts  that  strayed  no  farther  than  his  own 
little  personal  business  of  life,  and  that  they  would 
easily  be  translated  to  the  dollar  sign.  His  attitude 
was  one  of  gloomy  meditation,  and  her  own  mood  sup- 
plied the  subject.  She  watched  him  for  a  minute  or 
two,  and  his  abstraction  was  so  deep  that  he  did  not  feel 
her  presence. 

"  Uncle  Carl,  just  how  much  did  the  Lazy  A  cost 
you  ? "  she  asked  so  abruptly  that  she  herself  was  sur- 
prised at  the  question.  "  Or  putting  it  another  way, 
just  how  many  dollars  and  cents  did  you  spend  in  de- 
fending dad  ?  " 

Carl  started,  which  was  perfectly  natural,  and  glared 
at  her,  which  was  natural  also,  when  one  considers  that 
Jean  had  without  warning  opened  a  subject  tacitly  for- 
bidden upon  that  ranch.  His  eyes  hardened  a  little 
while  he  looked  at  her,  for  between  these  two  there  was 
scant  affection. 

"  What  do  you  want  to  know  for  ? "  he  countered, 
when  she  persisted  in  looking  at  him  as  though  she  was 
waiting  for  an  answer. 

"  Because    IVe    a    right    to    know.     Some    time, — 


A  MAN-SiZED   JOB  101 

within  f ouf  yeai's, —  I  Inean  to  buy  back  the  Lazj  A: 
I  want  to  know  how  much  it  will  take;"  Until  that 
moment  Jean  had  merely  drealned  of  some  day  buying 
it  back.  Until  she  spoke  she  would  have  Hauled  the 
idea  a  beautiful,  impossible  desire. 

"  Whei*e  you  going  to  get  the  money  ?  "  Carl  looked 
at  het  curiously,  as  if  he  almost  doubted  her  sanity. 

"  Eob  a  bank,  perhaps.  How  much  will  it  take  to 
square  things  with  you?  Of  coiirse,  being  a  relative, 
1  expect  to  be  cheated  a  little.  So  I  am  going  to  adopt 
sly,  sleuth-like  methods  and  find  out  just  how  much 
dad  owed  yoU  before  —  it  happened,  and  just  how 
much  the  lawyers  charged,  and  what  was  the  real  mar- 
ket value  of  the  outfit,  and  all  that.  Dad  told  me  — 
dad  told  me  that  there  was  something  left  over  for  me. 
He  didn't  explain  —  there  wasn't  time,  and  I  — 
couldn't  listen  to  dollar-talk  then.  I've  gone  along  all 
this  time,  just  drifting  and  getting  used  to  facts,  and 
taking  it  for  granted  that  everything  is  all  right  — " 

"  Well,  what's  wrong  ?  Everything  is  all  right,  far 
as  I  know.     I  can  see  what  you're  driving  at — " 

"  And  I'm  a  pretty  fair  driver,  too,"  Jean  cut  in 
calmly.  "I'll  reach  my  destination,  I  think, —  give 
me  time  enough." 

"  Whatever  fool  notion  you've  got  in  your .  head, 
you'd  better  drop  it,"  Carl  told  her  harshly.     "  There 


108      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

ain't  anything  you  can  do  to  better  matters.  I  came 
out  with  the  worst  of  it,  when  you  come  right  down  to 
facts,  and  all  the  nagging  — " 

Jean  went  toward  him  as  if  she  would  strike  him 
with  her  uplifted  hand.  "  Don't  dare  say  that !  How 
can  you  say  that, —  and  think  of  dad  ?  He  got  the 
worst  of  it.  He's  the  one  that  suffers  most  —  and  — 
he's  as  innocent  as  you  or  I.     You  know  it." 

Carl  rose  from  the  porch  and  faced  her  like  an 
enemy.  "  What  do  you  mean  by  that  ?  I  know  it  ? 
If  I  knew  anything  like  that,  do  you  think  I'd  leave  a 
stone  unturned  to  prove  it?     Do  you  think — " 

"  I  think  w^e  both  know  dad.  And  some  things  were 
not  proved, —  to  my  satisfaction,  at  least.  And  you 
know  how  long  the  jury  was  out,  and  what  a  time  they 
had  agreeing.  Some  points  were  weak.  It  was  sim- 
ply that  they  couldn't  point  to  any  one  else.  You  know 
that  was  it.     If  I  could  find  Art  Osgood  — " 

"  What's  he  got  to  do  with  it  ?  "  Her  uncle  leaned 
a  little  and  peered  into  her  face,  which  the  dusk  was 
veiling. 

"  That  is  what  I  want  to  find  out."  Jean's  voice 
was  quiet,  but  it  had  a  quality  which  he  had  never  be- 
fore noticed. 

"  You'd  better,"  he  advised  her  tritely,  "  let  sleeping 
dogs  lie." 


A   MAN-SIZED   JOB  109 

"  That's  the  trouble  with  sleeping  dogs ;  they  do  lie, 
more  often  than  not.  These  particular  dogs  have  lied 
for  nearly  three  years.  I'm  going  to  stir  them  up  and 
see  if  I  can't  get  a  yelp  of  the  truth  out  of  them." 

"  Oh,  you  are !  "  Carl  laughed  ironically.  "  You'll 
stir  up  a  lot  of  unpleasantness  for  yourself  and  the  rest 
of  us,  is  what  you'll  do.  The  thing's  over  and  done 
with.  Folks  are  beginning  to  forget  it.  You've  got  a 
home  — " 

Jean  laughed,  and  her  laugh  was  extremely  un- 
pleasant. 

"  You  get  as  good  as  the  rest  of  us  get,"  her  uncle 
reminded  her  sharply.  "  I  came  near  going  broke  my- 
self over  the  affair,  if  you  w^ant  to  know;  and  you 
stand  there  and  accuse  me  of  cheating  you  out  of  some- 
thing! I  don't  know  what  in  heaven's  name  you  ex- 
pect. The  Lazy  A  didn't  make  me  rich,  I  can  tell  you 
that.  It  just  barely  helped  to  tide  things  over.  You've 
got  a  home  here,  and  you  can  come  and  go  as  you 
please.  What  you  ain't  got,"  he  added  bitterly,  "  is 
common  gratitude." 

He  turned  away  from  her  and  went  into  the  house, 
and  Jean  sat  down  upon  the  edge  of  the  porch  and 
stared  away  at  the  dimming  outline  of  the  hills,  and 
wondered  what  had  come  over  her. 

Three  years  on  this  ranch,  seeing  her  uncle  every  day 


110      JEAN   OF   THE   LAZY   A 

almost,  living  under  the  same  roof  with  him,  talking 
with  him  upon  the  everyday  biisinesa  of  life,- —  and  to- 
night, for  the  first  time,  the  forbidden  subject  had  been 
opened.  She  had  said  things  that  until  lately  she  had 
not  realized  were  in  her  mind.  She  had  never  liked 
her  uncle,  who  was  so  different  from  her  father,  but 
she  had  never  accused  him  in  her  mind  of  unfairness 
until  she  had  written  something  of  the  sort  in  her 
ledger.  She  had  never  thought  of  quarrelling, —  and 
yet  one  could  scarcely  call  this  encounter  less  than  a 
quarrel.  And  the  strange  part  of  it  was  that  she  still 
believed  what  she  had  said ;  she  still  intended  to  do  the 
things  she  declared  she  would  do.  Just  how  she  would 
do  them  she  did  not  know,  but  her  purpose  was  harden- 
ing and  coming  clean-cut  out  of  the  vague  background 
of  her  mind. 

After  awhile  the  dim  outline  of  the  high-shouldered 
hills  glowed  under  a  yellowing  patch  of  light.  Jean 
sat  with  her  chin  in  her  palms  and  watched  the  glow 
brighten  swiftly,  Then  some  unseen  force  seemed  to 
be  pushing  a  bright  yellow  disk  up  through  a  gap  in 
the  hills,  and  the  gap  was  almost  too  narrow,  so  that  the 
disk  touched  either  side  as  it  slid  slowly  upward,  At 
last  it  was  up,  launched  fairly  upon  its  leisurely,  drift- 
ing journey  across  to  the  farther  hills  behind  her.  It 
was  not  quite  round.     That  was  because  one  edge  had 


A   MAN-SIZED   JOB  111 

scraped  too  hard  against  the  side  of  the  hill,  perhaps. 
But  warped  though  it  was,  its  light  fell  softly  upon 
Jean's  face,  and  showed  it  set  and  still  and  stern-eyed 
and  somber. 

She  sat  there  awhile  longer,  until  the  slopes  lay 
softly  revealed  to  her,  their  hollows  filled  with  inky 
shadows.  She  drew  a  long  breath  then,  and  looked 
around  her  at  the  familiar  details  of  the  Bar  Nothing 
dwelling-place,  softened  a  little  by  the  moonlight,  but 
harsh  with  her  memories  of  unhappy  days  spent  there. 
She  rose  and  went  into  the  house  and  to  her  room,  and 
changed  the  hated  striped  percale  for  her  riding- 
clothes. 

A  tall,  lank  form  detached  itself  from  the  black 
shade  of  the  bunk-house  as  she  went  by,  hesitated  per- 
ceptibly, and  then  followed  her  down  to  the  corral. 
When  she  had  gone  in  with  a  rope  and  later  led  out 
Pard,  the  form  stood  forth  in  the  white  light  of  the 
moon. 

"  Where  are  you  going,  Jean  ? "  Lite  asked  her  in  a 
tone  that  was  soothing  in  its  friendliness. 

"  That  you,  Lite  ?  I'm  going  —  well,  just  going. 
I've  got  to  ride."  She  pulled  Pard's  bridle  off  the  peg 
where  she  always  hung  it,  and  laid  an  arm  over  his 
neck  while  she  held  the  bit  against  his  clinched  teeth. 
Pard  never  did  take  kindly  to  the  feel  of  the  cold  steel 


112      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

in  his  mouth,  and  she  spoke  to  him  sharply  before  his 
jaws  slackened. 

"  Want  me  to  go  along  with  you  ?  "  Lite  asked,  and 
reached  for  his  saddle  and  blanket. 

"  ]^o,  I  want  you  to  go  to  bed."  Jean's  tone  was 
softer  than  it  had  been  for  that  whole  day.  "  You've 
had  all  the  riding  you  need.  I've  been  shut  up  with 
Aunt  Ella  and  her  favorite  form  of  torture." 

^'  Got  your  gun?  "  Lite  gave  the  latigo  a  final  pull 
which  made  Pard  grunt. 

"  Of  course.     Why  ?  " 

"  ISTothing, —  only  it's  a  good  night  for  coyotes,  and 
you  might  get  a  shot  at  one.  Another  thing,  a  gun's 
no  good  on  earth  when  you  haven't  got  it  with  you." 

"  Yes,  and  you've  told  me  so  about  once  a  week  ever 
since  I  was  big  enough  to  pull  a  trigger,"  Jean  re- 
torted, with  something  approaching  her  natural  tone. 
"  Maybe  I  won't  come  back,  Lite.  Maybe  I'll  camp 
over  home  till  morning." 

Lite  did  not  say  anything  in  reply  to  that.  He 
leaned  his  long  person  against  a  corral  post  and  watched 
her  out  of  sight  on  the  trail  up  the  hill.  Then  he 
caught  his  own  horse,  saddled  it  leisurely,  and  rode 
away. 

Jean  rode  slowly,  leaving  the  trail  and  striking  out 
across  the  open  country  straight  for  the  Lazy  A.     She 


A   MAN-SIZED    JOB  113 

had  no  direct  purpose  in  riding  this  way;  she  had  not 
intended  to  ride  to  the  Lazy  A  until  she  named  the 
place  to  Lite  as  her  destination,  but  since  she  had  told 
him  so,  she  knew  that  was  where  she  was  going.  The 
picture-people  would  not  be  there  at  night,  and  she  felt 
the  need  of  coming  as  close  as  possible  to  her  father; 
at  the  Lazy  A,  where  his  thoughts  would  cling,  she  felt 
near  to  him,— much  nearer  than  when  she  was  at  the 
Bar  ]N'othing.  And  that  the  gruesome  memory  of 
what  had  happened  there  did  not  make  the  place  seem 
utterly  horrible  merely  proves  how  unshakable  was  her 
faith  in  him. 

A  coyote  trotted  up  out  of  a  hollow  facing  her,  stiff- 
ened with  astonishment,  dropped  nose  and  tail,  and 
slid  away  in  the  shadow  of  the  hill.  A  couple  of  min- 
utes later  Jean  saw  him  sitting  alert  upon  his  haunches 
on  a  moon-bathed  slope,  watching  to  see  what  she  would 
do.  She  did  nothing;  and  the  coyote  pointed  his  nose 
to  the  moon,  yap-yap-yapped  a  quavering  defiance,  and 
slunk  out  of  sight  over  the  hill  crest. 

Her  mind  now  was  more  at  ease  than  it  had  been 
since  the  day  of  horror  when  she  had  first  stared  black 
tragedy  in  the  face.  She  was  passing  through  that 
phase  of  calm  elation  which  follows  close  upon  the  heels 
of  a  great  resolve.  She  had  not  yet  come  to  the  actual 
surmounting  of  the  obstacles  that  would  squeeze  hope 


114      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

from  the  heart  of  her ;  she  had  not  yet  looked  upon  the 
possibility  of  absolute  failure. 

She  was  going  to  buy  back  the  Lazy  A  from  her 
Uncle  Carl,  and  she  was  going  to  tear  away  that  at- 
mosphere of  emptiness  and  desolation  which  it  had  worn 
so  long.  She  was  going  to  prove  to  all  men  that  her 
father  never  had  killed  Johnny  Croft.  She  was  going 
to  do  it !  Then  life  would  begin  where  it  had  left  off 
three  years  ago.  And  when  this  deadening  load  of 
trouble  was  lifted,  then  perhaps  she  could  do  some  of 
the  glorious,  great  things  she  had  all  of  her  life  dreamed 
of  doing.  Or,  if  she  never  did  the  glorious,  great 
things,  she  would  at  least  have  done  something  to  justify 
her  existence.  She  would  be  content  in  her  cage  if  she 
could  go  round  and  round  doing  things  for  dad. 

A  level  stretch  of  country  lay  at  the  foot  of  the  long 
blulf,  w^hich  farther  along  held  the  Lazy  A  coulee  close 
against  its  rocky  side.  The  high  ridges  stood  out  boldly 
in  the  moonlight,  so  that  she  could  see  every  rock  and 
the  shadow  that  it  cast  upon  the  ground.  Little,  sooth- 
ing night  noises  fitted  themselves  into  her  thoughts  and 
changed  them  to  waking  dreams.  Crickets  that  hushed 
while  she  passed  them  by;  the  faint  hissing  of  a  half- 
wakened  breeze  that  straightway  slept  upon  the  grasses 
it  had  stirred;  the  sleepy  protest  of  some  bird  which 
Pard's  footsteps  had  startled. 


A   MAN-glZED   JOB  J16 

She  came  into  Lazy  A  coulee,  half  fftpaying  that  it 
wag  a  real  home-coming.  But  when  she  reftched  the 
gate  and  found  it  lying  flat  upon  the  ground  away  from 
the  broad  tre^d  of  the  picture-people's  machine,  her 
mind  jarred  from  dreams  back  to  reality.  From  sheer 
habit  she  dismounted,  picked  up  the  spineless  thing  of 
stakes  and  barbed  wire,  dragged  it  into  place  across 
the  trail,  and  fastened  it  securely  to  the  post.  She  re- 
mounted and  went  on,  and  a  little  of  the  hopefulness 
was  gone  from  her  face. 

"  I'll  just  about  have  to  rob  a  bank,  I  guess,"  she  told 
herself  with  a  grim  humor  at  the  tremendous  under- 
taking to  which  she  had  so  calmly  committed  herself. 
"  This  is  what  dad  would  call  a  man-sized  job,  I 
reckon."  She  pulled  up  in  the  white-lighted  trail  and 
stared  along  the  empty,  sagging-roofed  sheds  and  sta- 
bles, and  at  the  corral  with  its  open  gate  and  warped 
rails  and  leaning  posts.  "  I'll  just  about  have  to  rob 
a  bank, —  or  write  a  book  that  will  make  me  famous." 

She  touched  Pard  with  a  rein  end  and  went  on  slowly. 
"  Robbing  a  bank  would  be  the  quickest  and  easiest," 
she  decided  whimsically,  as  she  ueared  the  place  where 
she  always  sheltered  Pard.  "But  not  so  ladylike.  I 
guess  I'll  write  a  book.  It  3hould  be  something  real 
thrilly,  so  the  people  will  rush  madly  to  all  the  book- 
stores to  buy  it.     It  should  have  a  beautiful  girl,  and 


116      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

at  least  two  handsome  men, —  one  with  all  the  human 
virtues,  and  the  other  with  all  the  arts  of  the  devil  and 
the  cruel  strength  of  the  savage.  And  —  I  think  some 
Indians  and  outlaws  would  add  several  dollars'  worth  of 
thrills ;  or  else  a  ghost  and  a  haunted  house.  I  wonder 
which  would  sell  the  best  ?  Indians  could  steal  the  girl 
and  give  her  two  handsome  men  a  chance  to  do  chap- 
ters of  stunts,  and  the  wicked  one  could  find  her  first* 
and  carry  her  away  in  front  of  him  on  a  horse  (they 
do  those  things  in  books ! )  and  the  hero  could  follow  in 
a  mad  chase  for  miles  and  miles  — 

"  But  then,  ghosts  can  be  made  very  creepy,  with  tan- 
talizing glimpses  of  them  now  and  then  in  about  every 
other  chapter,  and  mysterious  hints  here  and  there,  and 
characters  coming  down  to  breakfast  with  white,  drawn 
faces  and  haggard  eyes.  And  the  wicked  one  would 
look  over  his  shoulder  and  then  utter  a  sardonic  laugh. 
Sardonic  is  such  an  effective  word;  I  don't  believe  In- 
dians would  give  him  any  excuse  for  sardonic  laugh- 
ter." 

She  swung  down  from  the  saddle  and  led  Pard  into 
his  stall,  that  was  very  black  next  the  manger  and  very 
light  where  the  moon  shone  in  at  the  door.  "  I  must 
have  lots  of  moonlight  and  several  stormy  sunsets,  and 
the  wind  soughing  in  the  branches.  I  shall  have  to 
buy  a  new  dictionary, —  a  big,  fat,  heavy  one  with  the 


A   MAN-SIZED    JOB  117 

flags  of  all  nations  and  how  to  measure  the  contents 
of  an  empty  hogshead,  and  the  deaf  and  dumb  alphabet, 
and  everything  but  the  word  you  want  to  know  the  mean- 
ing of  and  whether  it  begins  with  ph  or  an  f." 

She  took  the  saddle  off  Pard  and  hung  it  up  by  a 
stirrup  on  the  rusty  spike  where  she  kept  it,  with  the 
bridle  hung  over  the  stirrup,  and  the  saddle  blanket 
folded  over  the  horn.  She  groped  in  the  manger  and 
decided  that  there  was  hay  enough  to  last  him  till  morn- 
ing, and  went  out  and  closed  the  door.  Her  shadow 
fell  clean  cut  upon  the  rough  planks,  and  she  stood  for  a 
minute  looking  at  it  as  if  it  were  a  person.  Her  Stet- 
son hat  tilted  a  little  to  one  side,  her  hair  fluffed  loosely 
at  the  sides,  leaving  her  neck  daintily  slender  where  it 
showed  above  the  turned-back  collar  of  her  gray  sweater ; 
her  shoulders  square  and  capable  and  yet  not  too  heavy, 
and  the  slim  contour  of  her  figure  reaching  down  to 
the  ground.  She  studied  it  abstractedly,  as  she  would 
study  herself  in  her  mirror,  conscious  of  the  individ- 
uality, its  likeness  to  herself. 

"  I  don't  know  what  kind  of  a  mess  you'll  make  of  it," 
she  said  to  her  shadow,  "  but  you're  going  to  tackle  it, 
just  the  same.  You  can't  do  a  thing  till  you  get  some 
money." 

She  turned  then  and  went  thoughtfully  up  to  the 
house  and  into  her  room,  which  had  as  yet  been  left 


118      JEAN   OF   THE    LAZY   A 

undisturbed  behind  the  bars  she  had  placed  against  idle 
invasioUi 

The  moon  shone  full  into  the  window  that  faced  the 
coulee,  and  she  sat  down  in  the  old,  black  wooden  rocker 
and  gazed  out  upon  the  familiar,  open  stretch  of  sand 
and  scant  grass-growth  that  lay  between  the  house  and 
the  corrals.  She  turned  her  eyes  to  the  familiar  bold 
outline  of  the  bluff  that  swung  round  in  a  crude  o.val 
to  the  point  where  the  trail  turned  into  the  coulee  from 
the  southwest.  Half-way  between  the  base  and  the 
ragged  skyline,  the  boulder  that  looked  like  an  ele- 
phant's head  stood  out,  white  of  profile,  hooded  with 
black  shade.  Beyond  was  the  flat  shelf  of  ledge  that 
had  a  small  cave  beneath,  where  she  had  once  found  a 
nest  full  of  little,  hungry  birds  and  upon  the  slope  be- 
neath the  telltale,  scattered  wing-feathers,  to  show  what 
fate  had  fallen  upon  the  mother*  Those  birds  had  died 
also,  and  she  had  wept  and  given  them  Christian  burial, 
and  had  afterwards  spent  hours  every  day  with  her  lit- 
tle rifle  hunting  the  destroyer  of  that  small  home.  She 
remembered  the  incident  now  as  a  small  thread  in  the 
memory-pattern  she  Was  weaving; 

While  the  shadows  shortened  as  the  moon  swung 
high,  she  sat  and  looked  out  upon  the  coulee  and  the 
bluff  that  sheltered  it,  and  she  saw  the  things  that  were 
blended  culmingly  with  the  things  that  were  not*    After 


A   MAN-SIZED    JOB  119 

a  long  while  her  hands  unclasped  themselves  from  be- 
hind her  head  and  dropped  numbly  to  her  lap.  She 
sighed  and  moved  stiffly,  and  knew  that  she  was  tired 
and  that  she  must  get  some  sleep,  because  she  could  not 
sit  down  in  one  spot  and  think  her  way  through  the 
problems  she  had  taken  it  upon  herself  to  solve.  So  she 
got  up  and  crept  under  the  ISTavajo  blanket  upon  the 
couch,  tucked  it  close  about  her  shoulders,  and  shut  her 
eyes  deliberately.     Presently  she  fell  asleep. 


CHAPTER  X 

JEAN  LEAENS  WHAT  EEAB  IS  LIKE 

SOMETIME  in  the  still  part  of  the  night  which 
comes  after  midnight,  Jean  woke  slowly  "from 
dreaming  of  t]je  old  days  that  had  been  so  vivid  in  her 
mind  when  she  went  to  sleep.  Just  at  first  she  did  not 
know  what  it  was  that  awakened  her,  though  her  eyes 
were  open  and  fixed  upon  the  lighted  square  of  the  win- 
dow. She  knew  that  she  was  in  her  room  at  the  Lazy 
A,  but  just  at  first  it  seemed  to  her  that  she  was  there 
because  she  had  always  been  sleeping  in  that  room. 
She  sighed  and  turned  her  face  away  from  the  moon- 
light, and  closed  her  eyes  again  contentedly. 

Half  dreaming  she  opened  them  again  and  stared  up 
at  the  low  ceiling.  Somewhere  in  the  house  she  heard 
footsteps.  Very  slowly  she  wakened  enough  to  listen. 
They  were  footsteps, —  the  heavy,  measured  tread  of 
some  man.  They  were  in  the  room  that  had  been  her 
father's  bedroom,  and  at  first  they  seemed  perfectly 
natural  and  right;  they  seemed  to  be  her  dad's  foot- 
steps, and  she  wondered  mildly  what  he  was  doing,  up 
at  that  time  of  night. 


WHAT    FEAR    IS    LIKE        121 

The  footsteps  passed  from  there  into  the  kitchen  and 
stopped  in  the  corner  where  stood  the  old-fashioned  cup- 
board with  perforated  tin  panels  in  the  doors  and  at  the 
sides,  and  the  little  drawers  at  the  top, —  the  kind  that 
old  people  call  a  "  safe."  She  heard  a  drawer  pulled 
out.  Without  giving  any  conscious  thought  to  it,  she 
knew  which  drawer  it  was ;  it  was  the  one  next  the  wall, 
—  the  one  that  did  not  pull  out  straight,  and  so  had  to 
be  jerked  out.     What  was  her  dad  .  .  .  ? 

Jean  thrilled  then  with  a  tremor  of  fear.  She  had 
wakened  fully  enough  to  remember.  That  was  not  her 
dad,  out  there  in  the  kitchen.  She  did  not  know  who 
it  was;  it  was  some  strange  man  prowling  through  the 
house,  hunting  for  something.  She  felt  again  the 
tremor  of  fear  that  is  the  heritage  of  womanhood  alone 
in  the  dark.  She  pulled  the  ISTavajo  blanket  up  to  her 
ears  with  the  instinct  of  the  woman  to  hide,  because 
she  is  not  strong  enough  to  face  and  fight  the  danger 
that  comes^  in  the  datk.  She  listened  to  the  sound  of 
that  drawer  being  pushed  back,  and  the  other  drawer 
being  pulled  out,  and  she  shivered  under  the  blanket. 

Then  she  reached  out  her  hand  and  got  hold  of  her 
six-shooter  which  she  had  laid  down  unthinkingly  upon  a 
chair  near  the  couch.  She  wondered  if  she  had  locked 
the  outside  door  when  she  came  in.  She  could  not  re- 
member having  done  so ;  probably  she  had  not,  since  it  is 


122      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

not  the  habit  of  honest  ranch-dwellers  to  lock  their  doors 
at  night.  She  wanted  to  get  up  and  see,  and  fasten 
it  somehow ;  but  she  was  afraid  the  man  out  there  might 
hear  her.  As  it  was,  she  reasoned  nervously  with  her- 
self, he  probably  did  not  suspect  that  there  was  any 
one  in  the  house.  It  was  an  empty  house.  And  unless 
he  had  seen  Pard  in  the  closed  stall.  .  .  .  She  wondered 
if  he  had  heard  Pard  there,  and  had  investigated  and 
found  him.  She  wondered  if  he  would  come  into  this 
room.  She  remembered  how  securely  she  had  nailed 
up  the  door  from  the  kitchen,  and  she  breathed  freer. 
She  remembered  also  that  she  had  her  gun,  there  under 
her  hand.  She  closed  her  trembling  fingers  on  the  fa- 
miliar grip  of  it,  and  the  feel  of  it  comforted  her  and 
steadied  her. 

Yet  she  had  no  desire,  no  slightest  impulse  to  get  up 
and  see  who  was  there.  She  was  careful  not  to  move, 
except  to  cover  the  doorway  to  the  kitchen  with  her 
gun. 

After  a  few  minutes  the  man  came  and  tried  the 
door,  and  Jean  lifted  herself  cautiously  upon  her  elbow 
and  waited  in  grim  desperation.  If  he  forced  that 
door  open,  if  he  came  in,  she  certainly  would  shoot; 
and  if  she  shot, —  well,  you  remember  the  fate  of  that 
hawk  on  the  wing. 

The  man  did  not  force  the  door  open,  w^hich  was  per- 


WHAT    FEAR    IS    LIKE        123 

haps  the  luckiest  thing  that  ever  happened  to  him.  He 
fussed  there  until  he  must  have  made  sure  that  it  was 
fastened  firmly  upon  the  inside,  and  then  he  left  it  and 
went  into  what  had  been  the  living-room.  Jean  did  not 
move  from  her  half -sitting  position,  nor  did  she  change 
the  aim  of  her  gun.  He  might  come  back  and  try- 
again. 

She  heard  him  moving  about  in  the  living-room. 
Surely  he  did  not  expect  to  find  money  in  an  empty 
house,  or  anything  else  of  any  commercial  value.  What 
was  he  after?  Finally  he  came  back  to  the  kitchen, 
crossed  it,  and  stood  before  the  barred  door.  He 
pushed  against  it  tentatively,  then  stood  still  for  a 
minute  and  finally  went  out.  Jean  heard  him  step 
upon  the  porch  and  pull  the  kitchen  door  shut  behind 
him.  She  knew  that  squeal  of  the  bottom  hinge,  and 
she  knew  the  final  gasp  and  click  that  proved  the  latch 
was  fastened.  She  heard  him  step  off  the  porch  to  the 
path,  she  heard  the  soft  crunch  of  his  feet  in  the  sandy 
gravel  as  he  went  away  toward  the  stable.  Very  cau- 
tiously she  got  off  the  couch  and  crept  to  the  window; 
and  with  her  gun  gripped  tight  in  her  hand,  she  looked 
out.  But  he  had  moved  into  a  deep  shadow  of  the  bluff, 
and  she  could  see  nothing  of  him  save  the  deeper  shadow 
of  his  swift-moving  body  as  he  went  down  to  the  corral. 
Jean  gave  a  long  sigh  of  nervous  relaxation,  and  crept 


124      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

shivering  under  the  J^avajo  blanket.  The  gun  she  slid 
under  the  pillow,  and  her  fingers  rested  still  upon  the 
cool  comfort  of  the  butt. 

Soon  she  heard  a  horse  galloping,  and  she  went  to  the 
window  again  and  looked  out.  The  moon  hung  low 
over  the  bluff,  so  that  the  trail  lay  mostly  in  the  shadow. 
But  down  by  the  gate  it  swung  out  in  a  wide  curve  to 
the  rocky  knoll,  and  there  it  lay  moon-lighted  and 
empty.  She  fixed  her  eyes  upon  that  curve  and 
waited.  In  a  moment  the  horseman  galloped  out  upon 
the  curve,  rounded  it,  and  disappeared  in  the  shadows 
beyond.  At  that  distance  and  in  that  deceptive  light, 
she  could  not  tell  who  it  w^as ;  but  it  was  a  horseman,  a 
man  riding  at  night  in  haste,  and  with  some  purpose  in 
mind. 

Jean  had  thought  that  the  prowler  might  be  some 
tramp  who  had  wandered  far  off  the  beaten  path  of 
migratory  humans,  and  who,  stumbling  upon  the  coulee 
and  its  empty  dwellings,  was  searching  at  random  for 
whatever  might  be  worth  carrying  off.  A  horseman 
did  not  fit  that  theory  anywhere.  That  particular 
horseman  had  come  there  deliberately,  had  given  the 
house  a  deliberate  search,  and  had  left  in  haste  when 
he  had  finished.  Whether  he  had  failed  or  succeeded 
in  finding  what  he  wanted,  he  had  left.  He  had  not 
searched  the  stables,  unless  he  had  done  that  before 


WHAT    FEAR    IS    LIKE        125 

coming  into  the  house.  He  had  not  forced  his  way 
into  her  room,  probably  because  he  did  not  want  to  leave 
behind  him  the  evidence  of  his  visit  which  the  door 
would  have  given,  or  because  he  feared  to  disturb  the 
contents  of  Jean's  room. 

Jean  stared  up  in  the  dark  and  puzzled  long  over  the 
identity  of  that  man,  and  his  errand.  And  the  longer 
she  thought  about  it,  the  more  completely  she  was  at 
sea.  All  the  men  that  she  knew  were  aware  that  she 
kept  this  room  habitable,  and  visited  the  ranch  often. 
That  was  no  secret;  it  never  had  been  a  secret.  ISTo 
one  save  Lite  Avery  had  ever  been  in  it,  so  far  as  she 
knew, —  unless  she  counted  those  chance  trespassers  who 
had  prowled  boldly  through  her  most  sacred  belongings. 
So  that  almost  any  one  in  the  country,  had  he  any  ob- 
ject in  searching  the  house,  would  know  that  this  room 
was  hers,  and  would  act  in  that  knowledge. 

As  to  his  errand.  There  could  be  no  errand,  so  far 
as  she  knew.  There  were  no  missing  papers  such  as 
plays  and  novels  are  accustomed  to  have  cunningly  hid- 
den in  empty  houses.  There  was  no  stolen  will,  no 
hidden  treasure,  no  money,  no  Rajah's  ruby,  no  ransom 
of  a  king;  these  things  Jean  named  over  mentally,  and 
chuckled  at  the  idea  of  treasure-hunting  at  the  Lazy 
A.  It  was  very  romantic,  very  mysterious,  she  told 
herself.     And  she  analyzed  the  sensation  of  little  wet 


126      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

alligators  creeping  up  her  spine  (that  was  her  own 
simile),  and  decided  that  her  hook  should  certainly  have 
a  ghost  in  it ;  she  was  sure  that  she  could  describe  with 
extreme  vividness  the  effect  of  a  ghost  upon  her  various 
characters. 

In  this  wise  she  recovered  her  composure  and  laughed 
at  her  fear,  and  planned  new  and  thrillj  incidents  for 
her  novel. 

She  would  not  tell  Lite  anything  about  it,  she  decided. 
He  would  try  to  keep  her  from  coming  over  here  by 
herself,  and  that  would  precipitate  one  of  those  argu- 
ments between  them  that  never  seemed  to  get  them  any- 
where, because  Lite  never  would  yield  gracefully,  and 
Jean  never  would  yield  at  all, —  which  does  not  make 
for  peace. 

She  wished,  just  the  same,  that  Lite  was  there.  It 
would  be  much  more  comfortable  if  he  were  near  in- 
stead of  away  over  to  the  Bar  ^Nothing,  sound  asleep 
in  the  bunk-house.  As  a  self-appointed  guardian,  Jean 
considered  Lite  something  of  a  nuisance,  when  he  wasn't 
funny.  But  as  a  big,  steady-nerved  friend  and  com- 
rade, he  certainly  was  a  comfort. 


CHAPTER  XI 
Lite's  pupil  demonstrates 

JEAN"  awoke  to  hear  the  businesslike  buzzing  of  an 
automobile  coming  up  from  the  gate.  Evidently 
they  were  going  to  make  pictures  there  at  the  house, 
which  did  not  suit  her  plans  at  all.  She  intended  to 
spend  the  early  morning  writing  the  first  few  chapters 
of  that  book  which  to  her  inexperience  seemed  a  simple 
task,  and  to  leave  before  these  people  arrived.  As  it 
was,  she  was  fairly  caught  There  was  no  chance  of 
escaping  unnoticed,  unless  she  slipped  out  and  up  the 
bluif  afoot,  and  that  would  not  have  helped  her  in  the 
least,  since  Pard  w^as  in  the  stable. 

From  behind  the  curtains  she  watched  them  for  a 
few  minutes.  Robert  Grant  Burns  wore  a  light  over- 
coat, which  made  him  look  pudgier  than  ever,  and  he 
scowled  a  good  deal  over  some  untidy-looking  papers  in 
his  hands,  and  conferred  with  Pete  Lowry  in  a  dis- 
satisfied tone,  though  his  words  were  indistinguishable. 
Muriel  Gay  watched  the  two  covertly,  it  seemed  to  Jean, 
and  she  also  looked  dissatisfied  over  something. 

Burns  and  the  camera  man  walked  down  toward  the 


128      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

stables,  studying  the  bluff  and  the  immediate  surround- 
ings, and  still  talking  together.  Lee  Milligan,  with 
his  paint-shaded  eyes  and  his  rouged  lips  and  heavily 
pencilled  eyebrows,  came  up  and  stood  close  to  Muriel, 
who  was  sitting  now  upon  the  bench  near  Jean's  win- 
dow. 

"  Burns  ought  to  cut  out  those  scenes.  Gay,"  he  be- 
gan sympathetically.  "  You  can't  do  any  more  than 
you  did  yesterday.  And  believe  me,  you  put  it  over  in 
good  style.  I  don't  see  what  he  wants  more  than  you 
did." 

"  What  he  wants,"  said  Muriel  Gay  dispiritedly,  "  is 
for  me  to  pull  off  stunts  like  that  girl.  I  never  saddled 
a  horse  in  my  life  till  he  ordered  me  to  do  it  in  the 
scene  yesterday.  Why  didn't  he  tell  me  far  enough 
ahead  so  I  could  rehearse  the  business?  Latigo!  It 
sounds  like  some  Spanish  dish  with  grated  cheese  on 
top.     I  don't  believe  he  knows  himself  what  he  meant." 

"  He's  getting  nutty  on  Western  dope,"  sympathized 
Lee  Milligan.  "  I  don't  see  where  this  country's  got 
anything  on  Griffith  Park  for  atmosphere,  anyway. 
What  did  he  want  to  come  away  up  here  in  this  God- 
forsaken country  for?  What  is  there  to  it,  more  than 
he  could  get  within  an  hour's  ride  of  Los  Angeles  ?  " 

"  I  should  worry  about  the  country,"  said  Muriel 
despondently,  "  if  somebody  w^ould  kindly  tell  me  what 


LITE'S    PUPIL  129 

looping  up  your  latigo  means.  Burns  says  that  he's 
got  to  retake  that  saddling  scene  just  as  soon  as  the 
horses  get  here.  It  looks  just  as  simple,"  she  added 
spitefully,  "  as  climbing  to  the  top  of  the  Ferry  Build- 
ing tower  and  doing  a  leap  to  a  passing  airship.  In 
fact,  I'd  choose  the  leap." 

A  warm  impulse  of  helpfulness  stirred  Jean.  She 
caught  up  her  hat,  buckled  her  gun  belt  around  her 
from  pure  habit,  tucked  a  few  loose  strands  of  hair 
into  place,  and  went  out  where  they  were. 

"  If  you'll  come  down  to  the  stable  with  me,"  she 
drawled,  while  they  were  staring  their  astonishment  at 
her  unexpected  appearance  before  them,  "  I'll  show  you 
how  to  saddle  up.  Pard's  awfully  patient  about  being 
fussed  with;  you  can  practice  on  him.  He's  mean 
about  taking  the  bit,  though,  unless  you  know  just  how 
to  take  hold  of  him.     Come  on." 

The  three  of  them, —  Muriel  Gay  and  her  mother 
and  Lee  Milligan, —  stared  at  Jean  without  speaking. 
To  her  it  seemed  perfectly  natural  that  she  should  walk 
up  and  offer  to  help  the  girl;  to  them  it  seemed  not  so 
natural.  For  a  minute  the  product  of  the  cities  and 
the  product  of  the  open  country  studied  each  other  curi- 
ously. 

"  Come  on,"  urged  Jean  in  her  lazily  friendly  drawl. 
"  It's  simple  enough,  once  you  get  the  hang  of  it." 


130      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

And  she  smiled  before  she  added,  "  A  latigo  is  just  the 
strap  that  fastens  the  cinch.     I'll  show  you.'' 

"  I'll  bet  Bobby  Burns  doesn't  know  that,"  said 
Muriel  Gay,  and  got  up  from  the  bench.  "  It's  aw- 
fully good  of  you ;  Mr.  Burns  is  so  — " 

"  I  noticed  that,"  said  Jean,  while  Muriel  was  wait- 
ing for  a  word  that  w^ould  relieve  her  feelings  without 
being  too  blunt 

Burns  and  Pete  Lowry  and  the  assistant  had  gone 
down  the  coulee,  still  studying  the  bluff  closely.  "  I've 
got  to  ride  down  that  bluft,"  Muriel  informed  Jean,  her 
eyes  following  her  director  gloomily.  "  He  asked  me 
last  night  if  I  could  throw  a  rope.  I  don't  know  what 
for ;  it's  an  extra  punch  he  wants  to  put  in  this  picture 
somewhere.  I  wish  to  goodness  they  wouldn't  let  him 
write  his  own  scenarios;  he  just  lies  awake  nights, 
lately,  thinking  up  impossible  scenes  so  he  can  bully  us 
afterwards.  He's  simply  gone  nutty  on  the  subject  of 
punches." 

"Well,  it's  easy  enough  to  learn  how  to  saddle  a 
horse,"  Jean  told  Muriel  cheerfully.  "  First  you  want 
to  put  on  the  bridle  — " 

"  Burns  told  me  to  put  on  the  saddle  first ;  and  then 
he  cuts  the  scene  just  as  I  pick  up  the  bridle.  The 
trouble  is  to  get  the  saddle  on  right,  and  then  —  that 
latigo  dope !  " 


LITE'S    PUPIL  131 

"But  you  ought  to  bridle  him  first/ ^  Jean  insisted. 
"  Supposing  you  just  got  the  saddle  on,  and  your  horse 
got  startled  and  ran  off?  If  you  have  the  bridle  on, 
even  if  you  haven't  the  reins,  you  can  grab  them  when 
he  jumps." 

"Well,  that  isn't  the  way  Burns  directed  the  scene 
yesterday,"  Muriel  Gay  contended.  "  The  scene  ends 
w^here  I  pick  up  the  bridle." 

"  Then  Robert  Grant  Burns  doesn't  know.  I've  seen 
men  put  on  the  bridle  last ;  but  it's  wrong.  Lite  Avery, 
and  everybody  who  knows  — " 

Muriel  Gay  looked  at  Jean  with  a  weary  impatience. 
"  What  I  have  to  do,"  she  stated,  "  is  what  Burns  tells 
me  to  do.  I  should  worry  about  it's  being  right  or 
wrong ;  I'm  not  the  producer." 

Jean  faced  her,  frowning  a  little.  Then  she  laughed, 
hung  the  bridle  back  on  the  rusty  spike,  and  took  down 
the  saddle  blanket.  "We'll  play  I'm  Eobert  Grant 
Bums,"  she  said.  "  I'll  tell  you  what  to  do :  Lay  the 
blanket  on  straight, —  it's  shaped  to  Pard's  back,  so  that 
ought  to  be  easy, —  with  the  front  edge  coming  forward 
to  his  withers ;  that's  not  right.  Maybe  I  had  better  do 
it  first,  and  show  you.     Then  you'll  get  the  idea." 

So  Jean,  with  the  best  intention  in  the  world,  saddled 
Pard,  and  wondered  what  there  was  about  so  simple  a 
process   that   need   puzzle   any   one.     When   she   had 


132      JEAN   OF    THE    LAZY   A 

tightened  the  cinch  and  looped  up  the  latigo,  and  ex- 
plained to  Muriel  just  what  she  was  doing,  she  im- 
mediately unsaddled  him  and  laid  the  saddle  down  upon 
its  side,  with  the  blanket  folded  once  on  top,  and  stepped 
close  to  the  manger. 

"  If  your  saddle  isn't  hanging  up,  that's  the  way  it 
should  be  put  on  the  ground,"  she  said.  "  Now  you  do 
it.     It's  easy." 

It  was  easy  for  Jean,  but  Muriel  did  not  find  it  so 
simple.  Jean  went  through  the  whole  performance  a 
second  time,  though  she  was  beginning  to  feel  that  na- 
ture had  never  fitted  her  for  a  teacher  of  young  ladies. 
Muriel,  she  began  to  suspect,  rather  resented  the  process 
of  being  taught.  In  another  minute  Muriel  confirmed 
the  suspicion. 

"  I  think  I've  got  it  now,"  she  said  coolly.  "  Thank 
you  ever  so  much." 

Robert  Grant  Burns  returned  then,  and  close  behind 
him  rode  Gil  Huntley  and  those  other  desperados  who 
had  helped  to  brand  the  calf  that  other  day.  Gil  was 
leading  a  little  sorrel  with  a  saddle  on, —  Muriel's  horse 
evidently.  Jean  had  started  back  to  the  house  and  her 
own  affairs,  but  she  lingered  with  a  very  human  curios- 
ity to  see  what  they  were  all  going  to  do. 

She  did  not  know  that  Robert  Grant  Bums  was  per- 
fectly conscious  of  her  presence  even  when  he  seemed 


LITE'S    PUPIL  133 

busiest,  and  was  studying  her  covertly  even  when  he 
seemed  not  to  notice  her  at  all.  Of  his  company,  Pete 
Lowry  was  the  only  one  who  did  know^  it,  but  that  was 
because  Pete  himself  was  trained  in  the  art  of  observa- 
tion. Pete  also  knew  why  Burns  was  watching  Jean 
and  studying  her  slightest  movement  and  expression; 
and  that  was  why  Pete  kept  smiling  that  little,  hidden 
smile  of  his,  while  he  made  ready  for  the  day's  work 
and  explained  to  Jean  the  mechanical  part  of  making 
moving-pictures. 

"  I'd  rather  work  with  live  things,"  said  Jean  after 
a  while.  ''  But  I  can  see  where  this  must  be  rather 
fascinating,  too." 

"  This  is  working  with  live  things,  if  anybody  wants 
to  know,"  Pete  declared.  "  Wait  till  yoa  see  Burns  in 
action ;  handling  bronks  is  easy  compared  to  — " 

"  About  where  does  the  side  line  come,  Pete  ?  "  Burns 
interrupted.  "  If  Gil  stands  here  and  holds  the  horse 
for  that  close-up  saddling — "  He  whirled  upon  Gil 
Huntley.  "  Lead  that  sorrel  up  here,"  he  commanded. 
"  We'll  have  to  cut  off  his  head  so  the  halter  won't 
show.     J^ow,  how's  that  ?  " 

This  was  growing  interesting.  Jean  backed  to  a  con- 
venient pile  of  old  corral  posts  and  sat  down  to  watch, 
with  her  chin  in  her  palms,  and  her  mind  weaving 
shuttle-wise  back  and  fprth  from  one  person  to  another^ 


134      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

fitting  them  all  into  the  j)attern  which  made  the  whole. 
She  watched  Robert  Grant  Burns  walking  back  and 
forth,  growling  and  chuckling  by  turns  as  things  pleased 
him  or  did  not  please  him.  She  watched  Muriel  Gay 
walk  to  a  certain  spot  which  Burns  had  previously  in- 
dicated, show  sudden  and  uncalled-for  fear  and  haste, 
and  go  through  a  pantomime  of  throwing  the  saddle  on 
the  sorrel. 

She  watched  Lee  Milligan  carry  the  saddle  up  and 
throw  it  down  upon  the  ground,  with  skirts  curled  under 
and  stirrups  sprawling. 

"  Oh,  don't  leave  it  that  way,"  she  remonstrated. 
"  Lay  it  on  its  side !  You'll  have  the  skirts  kinked  so 
it  never  will  set  right." 

Muriel  Gay  gasped  and  looked  from  her  to  Eobert 
Grant  Burns.  For  betraying  your  country  and  your 
flag  is  no  crime  at  all  compared  with  telling  your  direc- 
tor what  he  must  do. 

"  Bring  that  saddle  over  here,"  commanded  Burns, 
indicating  another  spot  eighteen  inches  from  the  first. 
"  And  don't  slop  it  down  like  it  was  a  bundle  of  old 
clothes.  Lay  at  on  its  side.  How  many  times  have  I 
got  to  tell  you  a  thing  before  it  soaks  into  your  mind  ?  " 
Not  by  tone  or  look  or  manner  did  he  betray  any 
knowledge  that  Jean  had  spoken,  and  Muriel  decided 
that  he  could  not  have  heard. 


LITE'S    PUPIL  135 

Lee  Milligan  moved  the  saddle  and  placed  it  upon  its 
side,  and  Burns  went  to  the  camera  and  eyed  the  scene 
critically  for  its  photographic  value.  He  fumbled 
the  script  in  his  hands,  cocked  an  eye  upward  at 
the  sun,  stepped  back,  and  gave  a  last  glance  to  make 
sure  that  nothing  could  be  bettered  by  altering  the  de- 
tail. 

"  How's  Gil ;  outside  the  line,  Pete  ?  All  right. 
Now,  Miss  Gay,  remember,  you're  in  a  hurry,  and 
you're  worried  half  to  death.  You've  just  time  enough 
to  get  there  if  you  use  every  second.  You  were  crying 
when  the  letter-scene  closed,  and  this  is  about  five  min- 
utes afterwards;  you  just  had  time  enough  to  catch 
your  horse  and  lead  him  out  here  to  saddle  him.  Reg- 
ister a  sob  when  you  turn  to  pick  up  the  saddle.  You 
ought  to  do  this  all  right  without  rehearsing.  Get  into 
the  scene  and  start  your  action  at  the  same  time.  Pete, 
you  pick  it  up  just  as  she  gets  to  the  horse's  shoulder 
and  starts  to  turn.  Don't  forget  that  sob,  Gay. 
Ready  ?     Camera !  " 

Jean  was  absorbed,  fascinated  by  this  glimpse  into  a 
new  and  very  busy  little  world, —  the  world  of  moving- 
picture  makers.  She  leaned  forward  and  watched  every 
moment,  every  little  detail.  "  Grab  the  horn  with  your 
right  hand,  Miss  Gay  I  "  she  cried  involuntarily,  when 
Muriel   stooped   and   started   to   pick  up   the   saddle. 


136      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

"  Don't  —  oh,  it  looks  as  if  you  were  picking  up  a 
wash-boiler !     I  told  you  — " 

"  Register  that  sob  I  "  bawled  Robert  Grant  Burns, 
shooting  a  glance  at  Jean  and  stepping  from  one  foot  to 
the  other  like  a  fat  gobbler  in  fresh-fallen  snow. 

Muriel  registered  that  sob  and  a  couple  more  before 
she  succeeded  in  heaving  the  saddle  upon  th.e  back  of  the 
flinching  sorrel.  Because  she  took  up  the  s^iddle  by 
horn  and  cantle  instead  of  doing  it  as  Jean  had  taught 
her,  she  bungled  its  adjustment  upon  the  horse's  back. 
Then  the  sorrel  began  to  dance  away  from  her,  and 
Robert  Grant  Burns  swore  under  his  breath. 

"  Stop  the  camera !  "  he  barked  and  waddled  irately 
up  to  Muriel.  "  This,"  he  observed  ironically,  "  is 
drama,  Miss  Gay.  We  are  not  making  slap-stick 
comedy  to-day;  and  you  needn't  give  an  imitation  of 
boosting  a  barrel  over  a  fence." 

Tears  that  were  real  slipped  down  over  the  rouge 
and  grease  paint  on  Muriel's  cheeks.  "  Why  don't  you 
make  that  girl  stop  butting  in  ? "  she  flashed  unexpect- 
edly. "  I'm  not  accustomed  to  working  under  two  di- 
rectors !  "  She  registered  another  sob  which  the  camera 
never  got. 

This  brought  Jean  over  to  where  she  could  lay  her 
hand  contritely  upon  the  girl's  shoulder.  "  I'm  aw- 
fully sorry,"  she  drawled  with  perfect  sincerity.     "  I 


LITE'S    PUPIL  137 

didn't  mean  to  rattle  yon;  but  you  know  you  never  in 
the  world  could  throw  the  stirrup  over  free,  the  way  you 
had  hold  of  the  saddle.     I  thought  — " 

Burns  turned  heavily  around  and  looked  at  Jean,  as 
though  he  had  something  in  his  mind  to  say  to  her ;  but, 
whatever  that  something  may  have  been,  he  did  not  say 
it.  Jean  looked  at  him  questioningly  and  walked  back 
to  the  pile  of  posts. 

"  I  won't  butt  in  any  more,"  she  called  out  to  Muriel. 
"  Only,  it  does  look  so  simple !  "  She  rested  her  el- 
bows on  her  knees  again,  dropped  her  chin  into  her 
palms,  and  concentrated  her  mind  upon  the  subject  of 
picture-plays  in  the  making. 

Muriel  recovered  her  composure,  stood  beside  Gil 
Huntley  at  the  horse's  head  just  outside  the  range  of 
the  camera,  waited  for  the  word  of  command  from 
Burns,  and  rushed  into  the  saddle  scene.  Burns 
shouted  "  Sob !  "  and  Muriel  sobbed  with  her  face  to- 
ward the  camera.  Burns  commanded  her  to  pick  up 
the  saddle,  and  Muriel  picked  up  the  saddle  and  flung  it 
spitefully  upon  the  back  of  the  sorrel. 

"  Oh,  you  forgot  the  blanket !  "  exclaimed  Jean,  and 
stopped  herself  with  her  hand  over  her  too-impulsive 
mouth, 'just  as  Burns  stopped  the  camera. 

The  director  bowed  his  head  and  shook  it  twice 
slowly  and  with  much  meaning.     He  did  not  say  any- 


138      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY    A 

thing  at  all ;  no  one  said  anything.  Gil  Huntley  looked 
at  Jean  and  tried  to  catch  her  eye,  so  that  he  might 
give  her  some  greeting,  or  at  least  a  glance  of  under- 
standing. But  Jean  was  wholly  concerned  with  the 
problem  which  confronted  Muriel.  It  was  a  shame, 
she  thought,  to  expect  a  girl, —  and  when  she  had 
reached  that  far  she^-straightway  put  the  thought  into 
speech,  as  was  her  habit. 

"  It's  a  shame  to  expect  that  girl  to  do  something  she 
doesn't  know  how  to  do,"  she  said  suddenly  to  Eobert 
Grant  Burns.  "Work  at  something  else,  why  don't 
you,  and  let  me  take  her  somewhere  and  show  her  how  ? 
It's  simple  — " 

"  Get  up  and  show  her  now,"  snapped  Burns,  with 
some  sarcasm  and  a  good  deal  of  exasperation.  "  You 
seem  determined  to  get  into  the  foreground  somehow; 
get  up  and  go  through  that  scene  and  show  us  how  a 
girl  gets  a  saddle  on  a  horse." 

Jean  sat  still  for  ten  seconds  and  deliberated  while 
she  looked  from  him  to  the  horse.  Again  she  made  a 
picture  that  drove  its  elusive  quality  of  individuality 
straight  to  the  professional  soul  of  Robert  Grant 
Burns. 

"  I  will  if  you'll  let  me  do  it  the  right  way,"  she  said, 
just  when  he  was  thinking  she  would  not  answer  him. 
She  did  not  wait  for  his  assurance,  once  she  had  de- 


LITE'S    PUPIL  139 

cided  to  accept  the  challenge,  or  the  invitation ;  she  did 
not  quite  know  which  he  had  meant  it  to  be. 

"  I'm  going  to  bridle  him  first  though/'  she  informed 
him.  "  And  you  can  tell  that  star  villain  to  back  out 
of  the  way.     I  don't  need  him." 

Still  Burns  did  not  say  anything.  He  was  watching 
her,  studying  her,  measuring  her,  seeing  her  as  she 
would  have  looked  upon  the  screen.  It  was  his  habit 
to  leave  j)eople  alone  until  they  betrayed  their  limita- 
tions or  proved  their  talent ;  after  that,  if  they  remained 
under  his  direction,  he  drove  them  as  far  as  their  limi- 
tations would  permit. 

Jean  went  first  and  placed  the  saddle  to  her  liking 
upon  the  ground.  "  You  want  me  to  act  just  as  if  you 
were  going  to  take  a  picture  of  it,  don't  you  ? "  she 
asked  Burns  over  her  shoulder.  She  was  not  sure 
whether  he  nodded,  but  she  acted  upon  the  supposition 
that  he  did,  and  took  the  lead-rope  from  Gil's  hand. 

"  Shall  I  be  hurried  and  worried  —  and  shall  I  sob  ?  " 
she  asked,  with  the  little  smile  at  the  corners  of  her  eyes 
and  just  easing  the  line  of  her  lips. 

Eobert  Grant  Burns  seemed  to  make  a  quick  decision. 
"  Sure,"  he  said.  "  You  saw  the  action  as  Miss  Gay 
went  through  it.  Do  as  she  did ;  only  we'll  let  you  have 
your  own  ideas  of  saddling  the  horse."  Pie  turned  his 
head  toward  Pete  and  made  a  very  slight  gesture,  and 


140      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

Pete  grinned.  ^' All  ready?  Start  the  action!'' 
After  that  he  did  not  help  her  by  a  single  suggestion. 
He  tapped  Pete  upon  the  shoulder,  and  stood  with  his 
feet  far  apart  and  his  hands  on  his  hips,  watching  her 
very  intently. 

Jean  was  plainly  startled,  just  at  first,  by  the  busi- 
ness-like tone  in  which  he  gave  the  signal.  Then  she 
laughed  a  little.  "  Oh,  I  forgot.  I  must  be  hurried 
and  worried  —  and  I  must  sob,"  she  corrected  her- 
self. 

So  she  hurried,  and  every  movement  she  made  counted 
for  something  accomplished.  She  picked  up  the  bridle 
and  shortened  her  hold  upon  the  lead  rope,  and  discov- 
ered that  the  sorrel  had  a  trick  of  throwing  up  his  head 
and  backing  away  from  the  bit.  She  knew  how  to  deal 
with  that  habit,  however;  but  in  her  haste  she  forgot 
to  look  as  worried  as  Muriel  had  looked,  and  so  appeared 
to  her  audience  as  being  merely  determined.  She  got 
the  bridle  on,  and  then  she  saddled  the  sorrel.  And  for 
good  measure  she  picked  up  the  reins,  caught  the  stirrup 
and  went  up,  pivoting  the  horse  upon  his  hind  feet  as 
though  she  meant  to  dash  madly  off  into  the  distance. 
But  she  only  went  a  couple  of  rods  before  she  pulled 
him  up  sharply  and  dismounted. 

"  That  didn't  take  me  long,  did  it  ?  "  she  asked.  "  I 
could  have  hurried  a  lot  more  if  I  had  known  the 


LITE'S    PUPIL  141 

horse."     Then   she   stopped   dead   still   and  looked   at 
Eobert  Grant  Burns. 

"  Oh,  my  goodness,  I  forgot  to  sob !  "  she  gasped. 
And  she  caught  her  hat  brim  and  pulling  her  Stetson 
more  firmly  down  upon  her  head,  turned  and  ran  up  the 
path  to  the  house,  and  shut  herself  into  her  room. 


CHAPTEE  XII 

TO    "double"    for    MURIEL    gay 

WHILE  she  breakfasted  unsatisfaetorilj  upon 
soda  crackers  and  a  bottle  of  olives  which  hap- 
pened to  have  been  left  over  from  a  previous  luncheon, 
Jean  meditated  deeply  upon  the  proper  beginning  of  a 
book.  The  memory  of  last  night  came  to  her  vividly, 
and  she  smiled  while  she  fished  with  a  pair  of  scissors 
for  an  olive.  She  would  start  the  book  off  weirdly 
with  mysterious  sounds  in  an  empty  room.  That,  she 
argued,  should  fix  firmly  the  interest  of  the  reader  right 
at  the  start. 

By  the  time  she  had  fished  the  olive  from  the  bottle, 
however,  her  thoughts  swung  from  the  artistic  to  the 
material  aspect  of  those  mysterious  footsteps.  What 
had  the  man  wanted  or  expected  to  find?  She  set 
down  the  olive  bottle  impulsively  and  went  out  and 
around  to  the  kitchen  door  and  opened  it.  In  spite  of 
herself,  she  shuddered  as  she  went  in,  and  she  walked 
close  to  the  wall  until  she  was  well  past  the  brown  stain 
on  the  floor.  She  went  to  the  old-fashioned  cupboard 
and  examined  the  contents  of  the  drawers  and  looked 


MURIEL    GAY  143 

into  a  cigar-box  which  stood  open  upon  the  top.  She 
went  into  her  father's  bedroom  and  looked  through 
everything,  which  did  not  take  long,  since  the  room  had 
little  left  in  it.  She  went  into  the  living-room,  also  de- 
pressingly  dusty  and  forlorn,  but  try  as  she  would  to 
think  of  some  article  that  might  have  been  left  there 
and  was  now  wanted  by  some  one,  she  could  imagine  no 
reason  whatever  for  that  nocturnal  visit.  At  the  same 
time,  there  must  have  been  a  reason.  Men  of  that  coun- 
try did  not  ride  abroad  during  the  still  hours  of  the 
night  just  for  the  love  of  riding.  Most  of  them  went  to 
bed  at  dark  and  slept  until  dawn. 

She  went  out,  intending  to  go  back  to  her  literary 
endeavors;  if  she  never  started  that  book,  certainly  it 
would  never  make  her  rich,  and  she  would  never  be  able 
to  make  war  upon  circumstances.  She  thought  of  her 
father  with  a  twinge  of  remorse  because  she  had  wasted 
so  much  time  this  morning,  and  she  scarcely  glanced 
toward  the  picture-people  down  by  the  corrals,  so  she 
did  not  see  that  Eobert  Grant  Burns  turned  to  look  at 
her  and  then  started  hurriedly  up  the  path  to  the  house. 

"  Say,"  he  called,  just  before  she  disappeared  around 
the  corner.     "  Wait  a  minute.     I  want  to  talk  to  you." 

Jean  waited,  and  the  fat  man  came  up  breathing  hard 
because  of  his  haste  in  the  growing  heat  of  the  forenoon. 

"  Say,  I'd  like  to  use  you  in  a  few  scenes,"  he  began 


144      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

abruptly  when  he  reached  her.  "  Gay  can't  put  over 
the  stuff  I  want;  and  I'd  like  to  have  you  double  for 
her  in  some  riding  and  roping  scenes.  You're  about 
the  same  size  and  build,  and  I'll  get  you  a  blond  wig 
for  close-ups,  like  that  saddling  scene.  I  believe  you've 
got  it  in  you  to  make  good  on  the  screen ;  anyway,  the 
practice  you'll  get  doubling  for  Gay  won't  do  you  any 
harm." 

Jean  looked  at  him,  tempted  to  consent  for  the  fun 
there  would  be  in  it.  "  I'd  like  to,"  she  told  him  after 
a  little  silence.  '^  I  really  would  love  it.  But  I've  got 
some  work  that  I  must  do." 

"  Let  the  work  wait,"  urged  Burns,  relieved  because 
she  showed  no  resentment  against  the  proposal.  ^^  I 
want  to  get  this  picture  made.  It's  going  to  be  a  hum- 
mer.    There's  punch  to  it,  or  there  will  be,  if  — " 

"  But  you  see,"  Jean's  drawl  slipped  across  his 
eager,  domineering  voice,  "  I  have  to  earn  some  money, 
lots  of  it.  There's  something  I  need  it  for.  It's  — 
important." 

"  You'll  earn  money  at  this,"  he  told  her  bluntly. 
^^  You  didn't  think  I'd  ask  you  to  work  for  nothing,  I 
hope.  I  ain't  that  cheap.  It's  like  this:  If  you'll 
work  in  this  picture  and  put  over  what  I  want,  it'll  be 
feature  stuff.  I'll  pay  accordingly.  Of  course,  I  can't 
say  just  how  much, —  this  is  just  a  try-out;  you  under- 


MURIEL    GAY  145 

stand  that.  But  if  you  can  deliver  the  goods,  I'll  see 
that  yon  get  treated  right.  Some  producers  might  play 
the  cheap  game  just  because  you're  green;  but  I  ain't 
that  kind,  and  my  company  ain't  that  kind.  I'm  out 
after  results."  Involuntarily  his  eyes  turned  toward 
the  bluff.  "  There's  a  ride  down  the  bluff  that  I  want, 
and  a  roping  —  say,  can  you  throw  a  rope  ?  " 

Jean  laughed.  "  Lite  Avery  says  I  can,"  she  told 
him,  "  and  Lite  Avery  can  almost  write  his  name  in 
the  air  vvdtli  a  rope." 

"  If  you  can  make  that  dash  down  the  bluff,  and  do 
the  roping  I  want,  why  —  Lord !  You'll  have  to  be 
working  a  gold  mine  to  beat  what  I'd  be  willing  to  pay 
for  the  stuff." 

"  There's  no  place  here  in  the  coulee  where  you  can 
ride  down  the  bluff,"  Jean  informed  him,  "  except  back 
of  the  house,  and  that's  out  of  sight.  Farther  over 
there's  a  kind  of  trail  that  a  good  horse  can  handle.  I 
came  down  it  on  a  run,  once,  with  Pard.  A  man  was 
dro\\Tiing,  over  here  in  the  creek,  and  I  was  up  on  the 
bluff  and  happened  to  see  him  and  his  horse  turn  over, 
—  it  was  during  the  high  water.  So  I  made  a  run 
down  off  the  point,  and  got  to  him  in  time  to  rope  him 
out.     You  might  use  that  trail." 

Eobert  Grant  Burns  stood  and  stared  at  her  as  though 
he  did  not  see  her  at  all.     In  truth,  he  was  seeing  with 


146      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY    A 

his  professional  eyes  a  picture  of  that  dash  down  the 
bluff.  He  was  seeing  a  "  close-up  "  of  Jean  whirling 
her  loop  and  lassoing  the  drowning  man  just  as  he  had 
given  up  hope  and  was  going  under  for  the  third  time. 
Lee  Milligan  was  the  drowning  man !  and  the  agony  of 
his  eyes,  and  the  tenseness  of  Jean's  face,  made  Eobert 
Grant  Bums  draw  a  long  breath. 

"  Lord,  what  feature-stuff  that  would  make !  "  he 
said  under  his  breath.  "  I'll  write  a  scenario  around 
that  rescue  scene."  Whereupon  he  caught  himself.  It 
is  not  well  for  a  director  to  permit  his  enthusiasm  to 
carry  him  into  injudicious  speech.  He  chuckled  to 
hide  his  eagerness.  "  Well,  you  can  show  me  that  loca- 
tion," he  said,  "and  we'll  get  to  work.  You'll  have 
to  use  the  sorrel,  of  course ;  but  I  guess  he'll  be  all  right. 
This  saddling  scene  will  have  to  wait  till  I  send  for  a 
wig.  You  can  change  clothes  with  Miss  Gay  and  get 
by  all  right  at  a  distance,  just  as  you  are.  A  little 
make-up,  maybe;  she'll  -Q-x  that.  Come  on,  let's  get  to 
work.  And  don't  worry  about  the  salary;  I'll  tell  you 
to-night  what  it'll  be,  after  I  see  you  work." 

When  he  was  in  that  mood,  Robert  Grant  Burns  swept 
everything  before  him.  He  swept  Jean  into  his  plans 
before  she  had  really  made  up  her  mind  whether  to 
accept  his  offer  or  stick  to  her  literary  efforts.  He  had 
Muriel  Gay  up  at  the  house  and  preparing  to  change 


MURIEL    GAY  147 

clothes  with  Jean,  and  he  had  Lee  Milligan  started  for 
town  in  the  machine  with  the  key  to  Burns'  emergency 
wardrobe  trunk,  before  Jean  realized  that  she  was 
actually  going  to  do  things  for  the  camera  to  make  into 
a  picture. 

"  I'm  glad  you  are  going  to  double  in  that  ride  down 
the  bluff,  anyway/'  Muriel  declared,  while  she  blacked 
Jean's  brows  and  put  shadows  around  her  eyes.  "  I 
could  have  done  it,  of  course ;  but  mamma  is  so  nervous 
about  my  getting  hurt  that  I  hate  to  do  anything  risky 
like  that.     It  upsets  her  for  days." 

"  There  isn't  much  risk  in  riding  down  the  bluff," 
said  Jean  carelessly.  "  Xot  if  you've  got  a  good  horse. 
I  wonder  if  that  sorrel  is  rope  broke.  Have  you  ever 
roped  off  him  ?  " 

"  ISTo,"  said  Muriel,  "  I  haven't."  She  might  have 
added  that  she  never  roped  off  any  horse,  but  she  did 
not. 

"  I'll  have  to  try  him  out  and  see  what  he's  like,  be- 
fore I  try  to  rope  for  a  picture.  I  wonder  if  there'll. be 
time  now  ? "  Jean  was  pleasantly  excited  over  this 
new  turn  of  events.  She  had  dreamed  of  doing  many 
things,  but  never  of  helping  to  make  moving  pictures. 
She  was  eager  and  full  of  curiosity,  like  a  child  invited 
to  play  a  new  and  fascinating  game,  and  she  kept  won- 
dering what  Lite  would  have  to  say  about  her  posing  for 


148      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

moving    pictures.     Try    to    stop    her,    probably, —  and 
fail,  as  usual ! 

When  she  went  out  to  where  the  others  w^ere  grouped 
in  the  shade,  she  gave  no  sign  of  any  inner  excitement 
or  perturbation.  She  went  straight  up  to  Burns  and 
waited  for  his  verdict. 

"  Do  I  look  like  Miss  Gay  ?  '^  she  drawled. 

The  keen  eyes  of  Burns  half  closed  while  he  studied 
her. 

"  ^0,  I  can't  say  that  you  do,"  he  said  after  a  mo- 
ment. "  Walk  off  toward  the  corrals, —  and,  say ! 
Mount  the  sorrel  and  start  off  like  you  were  in  a  deuce 
of  a  hurry.  That'll  be  one  scene,  and  I'd  like  to  see 
how  you  do  it  when  you  can  have  your  own  way  about 
it,  and  how  close  up  we  can  make  it  and  have  you  pass 
for  Gay." 

"  How  far  shall  I  ride  ?  "  Jean's  eyes  had  a  betray- 
ing light  of  interest. 

"  Oh  —  to  the  gate,  maybe.  Can  you  get  a  long  shot 
down  the  trail  to  the  gate,  Pete,  and  keep  skyline  in  the 
scene  ? " 

Pete  moved  the  camera,  fussed  and  squinted,  and  then 
nodded  his  head.  "  Sure,  I  can.  But  you'll  have  to 
make  it  right  away,  or  else  wait  till  to-morrow.  The 
sun's  getting  around  pretty  well  in  front." 

We'll  take  it  right  after  this  rehearsal,  if  the  girl 


i( 


MURIEL    GAY  1^.9 

can  put  the  stuff  over  right/'  Burns  muttered.  "  And 
she  can,  or  I'm  badly  mistaken.  Pete,  that  girl's — " 
He  stopped  short,  because  the  shadow  of  Lee  Milligan 
was  moving  up  to  them.  *^  All  right,  Miss  —  say, 
what's  your  name,  anyway  ?  "  He  was  toldj  and  v/ent 
on  briskly.  ^^  Miss  Douglas,  just  start  from  off  that 
way, —  about  where  that  round  rock  is.  You'll  come 
into  the  scene  a  little  beyond.  Hurry  straight  up  to 
the  sorrel  and  mount  and  ride  off.  Your  lover  is  go- 
ing to  be  trapped  by  the  bandits,  and  you've  just  heard 
it  and  are  hurrying  to  save  him.  Get  the  idea  ?  J^ow 
let's  see  you  do  it." 

"  You  don't  want  me  to  sob,  do  you  ?  "  Jean  looked 
over  her  shoulder  to  inquire.  ^^  Because  if  I  were  go- 
ing to  save  my  lover,  I  don't  believe  I'd  want  to  waste 
time  Aveeping  around  all  over  the  place." 

Burns  chuckled.  *^  You  can  cut  out  the  sob,"  he 
permitted.     ^^  Just  go  ahead  like  it  was  real  stuff." 

Jean  was  standing  by  the  rock,  ready  to  start.  She 
looked  at  Burns  speculatively.  "  Oh,  well,  if  it  were 
real,  I'd  run !  " 

"  Go  ahead  and  run  then !  "  Burns  commanded. 

Run  she  did,  and  startled  the  sorrel  so  that  it  took 
quick  work  to  catch  him. 

^'  Camera  1  She  might  not  do  it  like  that  again, 
ever !  "  cried  Burns. 


150      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

She  was  up  in  the  saddle  and  gone  in  a  flurry  of  dust, 
while  Robert  Grant  Burns  stood  with  his  hands  on  his 
hips  and  watched  her  gloatingly. 

"  Lord!  But  that  girl's  a  find! ''  he  ejaculated,  and 
this  time  he  did  not  seem  to  care  who  heard  him.  He 
cut  the  scene  just  as  Jean  pulled  up  at  the  gate.  "  See 
how  she  set  that  sorrel  down  on  his  haunches  ?  "  he 
chuckled  to  Pete.  "  Talk  about  feature-stuff ;  that  girl 
will  jump  our  releases  up  ten  per  cent.,  Pete,  with  the 
punches  I  can  put  into  Gay's  parts  now.  How  many 
feet  was  that  scene,  twenty-five  ?  " 

"  Fifteen,"  corrected  Pete.  '^  And  every  foot  with 
a  punch  in  it.  Too  bad  she's  got  to  double  for  Gay. 
She's  got  the  face  for  close-up  work,  believe  me !  " 

To  this  tentative  remark  Robert  Grant  Burns  made 
no  reply  whatever.  He  went  off  down  the  path  to  meet 
Jean,  critically  watching  her  approach  to  see  how 
nearly  she  resembled  Muriel  Gay,  and  how  close  she 
could  come  to  the  camera  without  having  the  substitu- 
tion betrayed  upon  the  screen.  Muriel  Gay  was  a  lead- 
ing woman  with  a  certain  assured  following  among 
movie  audiences.  Daring  horsewomanship  would 
greatly  increase  that  following,  and  therefore  the  finan- 
cial returns  of  these  Western  pictures.  Burns  was  her 
director,  and  it  was  to  his  interest  to  build  up  her 
popularity.     Since  the  idea  first  occurred  to  him,  there- 


MURIEL    GAY  151 

fore,  of  using  Jean  as  a  substitute  for  Muriel  in  all  the 
scenes  that  required  nerve  and  skill  in  riding,  he  looked 
upon  her  as  a  double  for  Muriel  rather  than  from  the 
viewpoint  of  her  own  individual  possibilities  on  the 
screen. 

"  I  don't  know  about  your  hair,"  he  told  her,  when 
she  came  up  to  him  and  stopped.  "  We'll  run  the  nega- 
tive to-night  and  see  how  it  shows  up.  The  rest  of  the 
scene  was  all  right.  I  had  Pete  make  it.  I'm  going 
to  take  some  scenes  down  here  by  the  gate,  now,  with 
the  boys.  I  won't  need  you  till  after  lunch,  probably ; 
then  I'll  have  you  make  that  ride  down  off  the  bluff 
and  some  close-up  rope  work." 

"  I  suppose  I  ought  to  ride  over  to  the  ranch,"  Jean 
said  undecidedly.  "  And  I  ought  to  try  out  this  sorrel 
if  you  want  me  to  use  him.  Would  some  other  day  do 
just  — " 

"  In  the  picture  business,"  interrupted  Robert  Grant 
Burns  dictatorially,  "  the  working-hours  of  an  actor  be- 
long to  the  director  he's  working  for.  If  I  use  you  in 
pictures,  your  time  will  belong  to  me  on  the  days  w^hen 
I  use  you.  I'll  expect  you  to  be  on  hand  when  I  want 
you ;  get  that  ?  " 

"  My  time,"  said  Jean  resolutely,  "  will  belong  to 
you  if  I  consider  it  worth  my  while  to  let  you  have  it. 
Otherwise  it  will  belong  to  me." 


152      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

Burns  chuckled.  '^  Well,  we  might  as  well  get  down 
to  brass  tacks  and  have  things  thoroughly  understood/' 
he  decided.  "  I'll  use  you  as  an  extra  to  double  for 
Miss  Gay  where  there's  any  riding  stunts  and  so  on. 
Miss  Gay  is  a  good  actress,  but  she  can't  ride  to  amount 
to  anything.  With  the  clothes  and  make-up  you  — 
impersonate  her.  See  what  I  mean  ?  And  for  straight 
riding  I'll  pay  you  five  dollars  a  day;  fiYe  dollars  for 
your  time  on  the  days  that  I  want  to  use  you.  For 
any  feature  stuff,  like  that  ride  down  the  bluff,  and 
the  roping,  and  the  like  of  that,  it'll  be  more.  Twenty- 
five  dollars  for  feature-stuff,  say,  and  ^ve  dollars  for 
straight  riding.     Get  me  ?  " 

"  I  do,  yes."  Jean's  drawl  gave  no  hint  of  her  inner 
elation  at  the  prospect  of  earning  so  much  money  so 
easily.     What,  she  wondered,  would  Lite  say  to  that  ? 

"  Well,  that  part's  all  right  then.  By  feature-stuff, 
I  mean  anything  I  want  you  to  do  to  put  a  punch  in 
the  story;  anything  from  riding  bucking  horses  and 
shooting  —  say  can  you  shoot  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  think  so." 

"  Well,  I'll  have  use  for  that,  too,  later  on.  The 
more  stunts  you  can  pull  off,  the  bigger  hits  these  pic- 
tures are  going  to  make.  You  see  that,  of  course. 
And  what  I've  offered  you  is  a  pretty  good  rate ;  but  I 
expect  to  get  results.     I  told  you  I  wasn't  any  cheap 


MURIEL    GAY  153 

John  to  work  for.  Now  get  tliis  point,  and  get  it  right : 
•I'll  expect  you  to  report  to  me  every  morning  here,  at 
eight  o'clock.  I  may  need  you  that  day  and  I  may  not, 
but  you're  to  be  on  hand.  If  I  do  need  you,  you  get 
paid  for  that  day,  whether  it's  one  scene  or  twenty  you're 
to  work  in.  If  I  don't  need  you  that  day,  you  don't 
get  anything.  That's  what  being  an  extra  means.  You 
start  in  to-day,  and  if  you  make  the  ride  down  the  bluff, 
it'll  be  twenty-five  to-day.  But  you  can't  go  riding 
off  somewhere  else,  and  maybe  not  be  here  when  I  want 
you.  You're  under  my  orders,  like  the  rest  of  the  com- 
pany.    Get  that  ? " 

"  I'll  try  it  for  a  week,  anyway,"  she  said.  "  Obey- 
ing your  orders  will  be  the  hardest  part  of  it,  Mr. 
Burns.  I  always  want  to  stamp  my  foot  and  say  ^  I 
won't '  when  any  one  tells  me  I  nmst  do  something." 
She  laughed  infectiously.  "  You'll  probably  fire  me 
before  the  week's  out,"  she  prophesied.  "  I'll  be  as 
meek  as  possible,  but  if  we  quarrel,— well,  you  know 
how  sweet-tempered  I  can  be !  " 

Burns  looked  at  her  queerly  and  laughed.  "  I'll  take 
a  chance  on  that,"  he  said,  and  went  chuckling  back  to 
the  camera.  To  have  a  girl  absolutely  ignore  his  posi- 
tion and  authority,  and  treat  him  in  that  off-hand  man- 
ner of  equality  was  a  new  experience  to  Robert  Grant 
Burns,  terror  among  photo-players. 


154      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

Jean  went  over  to  where  Muriel  and  her  mother  were 
sitting  in  the  shade,  and  asked  Muriel  if  she  would  like 
to  ride  Pard  out  into  the  flat  beyond  the  corrals,  where 
she  meant  to  try  out  the  sorrel. 

"  I'd  like  to  use  you,  anyway,"  she  added  frankly, 
"  to  practice  on.  You  can  ride  past,  you  know,  and  let 
me  rope  you.  Oh,  it  won't  hurt  you ;  and  there'll  be  no 
risk  at  all,"  she  hastened  to  assure  the  other,  when  she 
saw  refusal  in  Muriel's  eyes.  "  I'll  not  take  any  turns 
around  the  horn,  you  know." 

"  I  don't  want  Muriel  taking  risks  like  that,"  put  in 
Mrs.  Gay  hastily.  "  That's  just  why  Burns  is  going  to 
have  you  double  for  her.  A  leading  woman  can't  af- 
ford to  get  hurt.  Muriel,  you  stay  here  and  rest  while 
you  have  a  chance.  Goodness  knows  it's  hard  enough,  at 
best,  to  work  under  Burns." 

Jean  looked  at  her  and  turned  away.  So  that  was  it 
—  a  leading  woman  could  not  afford  to  be  hurt !  Some 
one  else,  who  didn't  amount  to  anything,  must  take 
the  risks.  She  had  received  her  first  little  lesson  in 
this  new  business. 

She  went  straight  to  Bums,  interrupted  him  in 
coaching  his  chief  villain  for  a  scene,  and  asked  him  if 
he  could  spare  a  man  for  half  an  hour  or  so.  "  I  want 
some  one  to  throw  a  rope  over  on  the  run,"  she  ex- 
plained naively,  "  to  try  out  this  sorrel." 


MURIEL    GAY  155 

Burns  regarded  her  somberly;  he  hated  to  be  inter- 
rupted in  his  work. 

"  Ain't  there  anybody  else  you  can  rope  ?  "  he  wanted 
to  know.     "  Where's  Gay  ?  " 

" '  A  leading  woman/  ^'  quoted  Jean  serenel}^, 
"  ^  can't  afford  to  get  hurt ! '  " 

Burns  chuckled.  He  knew  who  was  the  author  of 
that  sentence;  he  had  heard  it  before.  "Well,  if 
you're  as  fatal  as  all  that,  I  can't  turn  over  my  leading 
man  for  you  to  practice  on,  either,"  he  pointed  out  to 
her.     "'  What's  the  matter  with  a  calf  or  something  ?  " 

"  You  won't  let  me  ride  out  of  your  sight  to  round 
one  up,"  Jean  retorted.  "  There  are  no  calves  handy ; 
that's  why  I  asked  for  a  man." 

Whereupon  the  villains  looked  at  one  another  queerly, 
and  the  chuckle  of  their  director  exploded  into  a  full- 
lunged  laugh. 

"  I'm  going  to  use  all  these  fellows  in  a  couple 
of  scenes,"  he  told  her.  "  Can't  you  practice  on  a 
post  ? " 

''  I  don't  have  to  practice.  It's  the  sorrel  I  want  to 
try  out."  Jean's  voice  lost  a  little  of  its  habitual,  soft 
drawl.  Eeally,  these  picture-people  did  seem  very 
dense  upon  some  subjects ! 

"  Well,  now  look  here."  Robert  Grant  Burns  caught 
at  the  shreds  of  his  domineering  manner.     "  My  part 


156      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

of  this  business  is  producing  the  scenes.  You'll  have 
to  attend  to  the  getting-ready  part.  You  —  you 
wouldn't  expect  me  to  help  you  put  on  your  make-up, 
would  you  ? " 

"  x^To,  now  that  I  recognize  your  limitations,  I  shall 
not  ask  any  help  which  none  of  you  are  able  or  have  the 
nerve  to  give,"  she  returned  coolly.  "  I  wish  I  had 
Lite  here;  but  I  guess  Pard  and  I  can  handle  the 
sorrel  ourselves.     Sorry  to  have  disturbed  you." 

Robert  Grant  Burns,  his  leading  man  and  all  his 
villains  stood  and  watched  her  walk  away  from  them  to 
the  stable.  They  watched  her  lead  Pard  out  and  turn 
him  loose  in  the  biggest  corral.  When  they  saw  her 
take  her  coiled  rope,  mount  the  sorrel  and  ride  in,  they 
went,  in  a  hurried  group,  to  where  they  might  look  into 
that  corral.  They  watched  her  pull  the  gate  shut  after 
her,  lean  from  the  saddle,  and  fasten  the  chain  hook 
in  its  accustomed  link.  By  the  time  she  had  widened 
her  loop  and  turned  to  charge  down  upon  unsuspecting 
Pard,  Robert  Grant  Burns,  his  leading  man  and  all  his 
villains  were  lined  up  along  the  Avidest  space  between 
the  corral  rails,  and  Pete  Lowry  was  running  over  so 
as  to  miss  none  of  the  show. 

"  Oh,  I  thought  you  were  all  so  terribly  busy !  " 
taunted  Jean,  while  her  loop  was  circling  over  her  head. 
Pard  wheeled  just  then  upon  his  hind  feet,  but  the  loop 


MURIEL    GAY  15T 

settled  true  over  his  head  and  drew  tight  against  his 
shoulders. 

The  sorrel  lunged  and  fought  the  rope,  and  snorted 
and  reared.  It  took  fully  two  minutes  for  Jean  to 
force  him  close  enough  to  Pard  so  that  she  might  flip 
off  the  loop.  Pard  himself  caught  the  excitement  and 
snorted  and  galloped  wildly  round  and  round  the  en- 
closure, but  Jean  did  not  mind  that;  what  brought  her 
lips  so  tightly  together  was  the  performance  of  the 
sorrel.  While  she  was  coiling  her  rope,  he  was  making 
half-hearted  buck  jumps  across  the  corral.  When  she 
swished  the  rope  through  the  air  to  widen  her  loop,  he 
reared  and  whirled.  She  jabbed  him  smartly  with  the 
spurs,  and  he  kicked  forward  at  her  feet. 

"  Say,''  she  drawled  to  Burns,  "  I  don't  know  what 
sort  of  a  picture  you're  going  to  make,  but  if  you  want 
any  roping  done  from  this  horse,  you'  11  have  to  furnish 
meals  and  beds  for  your  audiences."  With  that  she 
was  off  across  the  corral  at  a  tearing  pace  that  made  the 
watchers  gasp.  The  sorrel  swung  clear  of  the  fence. 
He  came  near  going  down  in  a  heap,  but  recovered 
himself  after  scrambling  along  on  his  knees.  Jean 
brought  him  to  a  stand  before  Burns. 

"  I'll  have  to  ask  you  to  raise  your  price,  Mr.  Bums, 
if  you  want  me  to  run  this  animal  down  the  bluff,"  she 
stated  firmly.     "  He's  just  what  I  thought  he  was  all 


158      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

along:  a  ride-around-the-block  horse  from  some  livery 
stable.  When  it  comes  to  range  work,  he  doesn't  know 
as  much  as  — " 

"  Some  people.  I  get  you,"  Burns  cut  in  drily. 
'^  How  about  that  horse  of  yours  ?  Would  you  be  will- 
ing to  let  me  have  the  use  of  him  —  at  so  much  per  ?  " 

"  If  I  do  the  riding,  yes.  I^ow,  since  you're  here, 
and  don't  seem  as  busy  as  you  thought  you  were,  I'll 
show  you  the  difference  between  this  livery-stable  beast 
and  a  real  rope-horse." 

She  dismounted  and  called  to  Pard,  and  Pard  came 
to  her,  stepping  warily  because  of  the  sorrel  and  the 
rope.  '^  Just  to  save  time,  will  one  of  you  boys  go  and 
bring  my  riding  outfit  from  the  stable  ?  "  she  asked  the 
line  at  the  fence,  whereupon  the  leading  man  and  all 
the  villains  started  unanimously  to  perform  that  slight 
service,  which  shows  pretty  well  how  Jean  stood  in 
their  estimation. 

"  E^ow,  that's  a  real,  typical,  livery-stable  saddle  and 
bridle,"  she  observed  to  Burns,  pointing  scornfully  at 
the  sorrel.  "  I  was  going  to  tell  you  that  I'd  hate  to 
be  seen  in  a  picture  riding  that  outfit,  anyway.  !N^0Wj 
you  watch  how  differently  Pard  behaves  with  9,  rope  and 
everything.  And  you  watch  the  sorrel  get  what's  com- 
ing to  him.     Shall  I  ^  bust '  him  ?  " 

"  You  mean  throw  him  ?  "     Burns,  in  his  eagerness, 


MURIEL    GAY  159 

began  to  climb  the  corral  fence, —  until  he  heard  a  rail 
crack  under  his  weight.  "  Yes,  bust  him,  if  you  want 
to.  John  Jimpson!  if  you  can  rope  and  throw  that 
sorrel  — " 

Jean  did  not  reply  to  that  half-finished  sentence. 
She  was  busy  saddling  Pard;  now  she  mounted  and 
widened  her  loop  with  a  sureness  of  the  result  that 
flashed  a  thrill  of  expectation  to  her  audience.  Twice 
the  loop  circled  over  her  head  before  she  flipped  it  out 
straight  and  true  toward  the  frantic  sorrel  as  he  surged 
by.  She  caught  him  fairly  by  both  front  feet  and 
swung  Pard  half  away  from  him.  Pard's  muscles  stiff- 
ened against  the  jerk  of  the  rope,  and  the  sorrel  went 
down  with  a  bump.  Pard  backed  knowingly  and  braced 
himself  like  the  trained  rope-horse  he  was,  and  Jean 
looked  at  Robert  Grant  Burns  and  laughed. 

"  I  didn't  bust  him,"  she  disclaimed  whimsically. 
"  He  done  busted  himself !  "  She  touched  Pard  with 
her  heel  and  rode  up  so  that  the  rope  slackened,  and 
she  could  throw  off  the  loop.  "  Did  you  see  how  Pard 
set  himself  ? ''  she  questioned  eagerly.  "  I  could  have 
gotten  off  and  gone  clear  away,  and  Pard  would  have 
kept  that  horse  from  getting  on  his  feet.  !N'ow  you  see 
the  difference,  don't  you  ?  Pard  never  would  have  gone 
down  like  that." 

"  Oh,    you'll   do,"    chuckled   Robert    Grant   Burns. 


160      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

"  I'll  pay  you  a  little  more  and  use  you  and  your  horse 
together.  Call  that  settled.  Come  on,  boys,  let's  get 
to  work." 


CHAPTER  XIII 

PICTUKES    AND    PLAJ^S    AND    MYSTEKIOUS    FOOTSTEPS 

WHEN  Lite  objected  to  her  staying  altogether  at 
the  Lazy  A,  Jean  assured  him  that  she  was 
being  terribly  practical  and  cautious  and  businesslike, 
and  pointed  out  to  him  that  staying  there  would  save 
Pard  and  herself  the  trip  back  and  forth  each  day,  and 
would  give  her  time,  mornings  and  evenings  to  work  on 
her  book. 

Lite,  of  course,  knew  all  about  that  soon-to-be-famous 
book.  He  usually  did  know  nearly  everything  that 
concerned  Jean  or  held  her  interest.  Whether,  after 
three  years  of  futile  attempts,  Lite  still  felt  himself  en- 
titled  to  be  called  Jean's  boss,  I  cannot  say  for  a  cer- 
tainty. H^  had  grown  rather  silent  upon  that  subject, 
and  rather  inclined  to  keep  himself  in  the  background, 
as  Jean  grew  older  and  more  determined  in  her  ways. 
But  certainly  he  was  Jean's  one  confidential  friend, — 
her  pal.  So  Lite,  perforce,  listened  while  Jean  told 
him  the  plot  of  her  story.  And  when  she  asked  him  in 
all  earnestness  what  he  thought  would  be  best  for  the 
tragic    element,    ghosts    or    Indians,    Lite    meditated 


162      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

gravely  upon  the  subject  and  then  suggested  that  she 
put  in  both.  That  is  why  Jean  lavishly  indulged  in 
mysterious  footsteps  all  through  the  first  chapter,  and 
then  opened  the  second  with  blood-curdling  war-whoops 
that  chilled  the  soul  of  her  heroine  and  led  her  to  sus- 
pect that  the  rocks  behind  the  cabin  concealed  the  forms 
of  painted  savages. 

Her  imagination  must  have  been  stimulated  by  her 
new  work,  which  called  for  wild  rides  after  posses  and 
wilder  flights  away  from  the  outlaws,  while  the  flash 
of  blank  cartridges  and  the  smoke-pots  of  disaster  by 
fire  added  their  spectacular  effect  to  a  scene  now  and 
then. 

Jean,  of  course,  was  invariably  the  wild  rider  who 
fled  in  a  blond  wig  and  Muriel's  clothes  from  pursuing 
villains,  or  dashed  up  to  the  sheriff's  office  to  give  the 
alarm.  Frequently  she  fired  the  blank  cartridges,  un- 
til Lite  warned  her  that  blank  cartridges  would  ruin  her 
gun-barrel ;  after  which  she  insisted  upon  using  bullets, 
to  the  secret  trepidation  of  the  villains  who  must  stand 
before  her  and  who  could  never  quite  grasp  the  fact  that 
Jean  knew  exactly  where  those  bullets  were  going'  to 
land. 

She  would  sit  in  her  room  at  the  Lazy  A,  when  the 
sun  and  the  big,  black  automobile  and  the  painted 
workers  were  gone,  and  write  feverishly  of  ghosts  and 


PICTURES    AND    PLANS      163 

Indians  and  the  fair  maiden  who  endured  so  much  and 
the  brave  hero  who  dared  so  much  and  loved  so  well. 
Lee  Milligan  she  visualized  as  the  human  wolf  who 
looked  with  desire  upon  Lillian.  Gil  Huntley  became 
the  hero  as  the  story  unfolded;  and  while  I  have  told 
you  absolutely  nothing  about  Jean's  growing  acquaint- 
ance with  these  two,  you  may  draw  your  own  conclusions 
from  the  place  she  made  for  them  in  her  book  that  she 
was  writing.  And  you  may  also  form  some  idea  of 
what  Lite  Avery  was  living  through,  during  those  days 
when  his  work  and  his  pride  held  him  apart,  and  Jean 
did  "  stunts ''  to  her  heart's  content  with  these  others. 

A  letter  from  the  higher-ups  in  the  Great  Western 
Company,  written  just  after  a  trial  run  of  the  first  pic- 
ture wherein  Jean  had  worked,  had  served  to  stimulate 
Burns'  appetite  for  the  spectacular,  so  that  the  stunts 
became  more  and  more  the  features  of  his  pictures. 
Muriel  Gay  was  likely  to  become  the  most  famous  photo- 
play actress  in  the  West,  he  believed.  That  is,  she 
would  if  Jean  continued  to  double  for  her  in  everything 
save  the  straight  dramatic  work. 

Jean  did  not  care  just  at  that  time  how  much  glory 
Muriel  Gay  was  collecting  for  work  that  Jean  herself 
had  done.  Jean  was  experiencing  the  first  thrills  of 
seeing  her  name  written  upon  the  face  of  fat,  weekly 
checks  that  promised  the  fulfillment  of  her  hopes,  and 


164      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

she  would  not  listen  to  Lite  when  he  ventured  a  remon- 
strance against  some  of  the  things  she  told  him  about 
doing.  Jean  was  seeing  the  Lazy  A  restored  to  its  old- 
time  home-like  prosperity.  She  was  seeing  her  dad 
there,  going  tranquilly  about  the  everyday  business  of 
the  ranch,  holding  his  head  well  up,  and  looking  every 
man  straight  in  the  eye.  She  could  not  and  she  would 
not  let  even  Lite  persuade  her  to  give  up  risking  her 
neck  for  the  money  the  risk  would  bring  her. 

If  she  could  change  these  dreams  to  reality  by  dash- 
ing madly  about  on  Pard  while  Pete  Lowry  wound  yards 
and  yards  of  narrow  gray  film  around  something  on  the 
inside  of  his  camera,  and  watched  her  with  that  little, 
secret  smile  on  his  face ;  and  while  Eobert  Grant  Burns 
waddled  here  and  there  with  his  hands  on  his  hips,  and 
watched  her  also;  and  while  villains  pursued  or  else 
fled  before  her,  and  Lee  Milligan  appeared  furiously 
upon  the  scene  in  various  guises  to  rescue  her, —  if  she 
could  win  her  dad's  freedom  and  the  Lazy  A's  posses- 
sion by  doing  these  foolish  things,  she  was  perfectly  will- 
ing to  risk  her  neck  and  let  Muriel  receive  the  ap- 
plause. 

She  did  not  know  that  she  was  doubling  the  profit  on 
these  Western  pictures  which  Robert  Grant  Burns  was 
producing.  She  did  not  know  that  it  would  have 
hastened  the  attainment  of  her  desires  had  her  name 


PICTURES    AND    PLANS       165 

appeared  in  the  cast  as  the  girl  who  put  the  "  punches  " 
in  the  plays.  She  did  not  know  that  she  was  being 
cheated  of  her  rightful  reward  when  her  name  never 
appeared  anywhere  save  on  the  pay-roll  and  the  weekly 
checks  which  seemed  to  her  so  magnificently  generous. 
In  her  ignorance  of  what  Gil  Huntley  called  the  movie 
game,  she  was  perfectly  satisfied  to  give  the  best  service 
of  which  she  was  capable,  and  she  never  once  questioned 
the  justice  of  Robert  Grant  Burns. 

Jean  started  a  savings  account  in  the  little  bank 
where  her  father  had  opened  an  account  before  she  was 
born,  and  Lite  was  made  to  writhe  inwardly  with  her 
boasting.  Lite,  if  you  please,  had  long  ago  started  a 
savings  account  at  that  same  bank,  and  had  lately  cut 
out  poker,  and  even  pool,  from  among  his  joys,  that  his 
account  might  fatten  the  faster.  He  had  the  same  ob- 
ject which  Jean  had  lately  adopted  so  zealously,  but  he 
did  not  tell  her  these  things.  He  listened  instead  while 
Jean  read  gloatingly  her  balance,  and  talked  of  what  she 
would  do  when  she  had  enough  saved  to  buy  back  the 
ranch.  She  had  stolen  unwittingly  the  air  castle  which 
Lite  had  been  three  years  building,  but  he  did  not  say  a 
word  about  it  to  Jean.  Wistful  eyed,  but  smiling  with 
his  lips,  he  would  sit  w^hile  Jean  spoiled  whole  sheets 
of  perfectly  good  story-paper,  just  figuring  and  estimat- 
ing and  building  castles  with  tbe  dollar  sign,     If  Robert 


166      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

Grant  Burns  persisted  in  his  mania  for  "  feature-stuff  " 
and  "  punches  "  in  his  pictures,  Jean  believed  that  she 
would  have  a  fair  start  toward  buying  back  the  Lazy 
A  long  before  her  book  was  published  and  had  brought 
her  the  thousands  and  thousands  of  dollars  she  was  sure 
it  would  bring.  Very  soon  she  could  go  boldly  to  a 
lawyer  and  ask  him  to  do  something  about  her  father's 
case.  Just  what  he  should  do  she  did  not  quite  know ; 
and  Lite  did  not  seem  to  be  able  to  tell  her,  but  she 
thought  she  ought  to  find  out  just  how  much  the  trial 
had  cost.  And  she  wished  she  knew  how  to  get  about 
setting  some  one  on  the  trail  of  Art  Osgood. 

Jean  was  sure  that  Art  Osgood  knew  something  about 
the  murder,  and  she  frequently  tried  to  make  Lite  agree 
with  her.  Sometimes  she  w^as  sure  that  Art  Osgood 
was  the  murderer,  and  would  argue  and  point  out  her 
reasons  to  Lite.  Art  had  been  working  for  her  uncle, 
and  rode  often  to  the  Lazy  A.  He  had  not  been  friendly 
with  Johnny  Croft, —  but  then,  nobody  had  been  very 
friendly  with  Johnny  Croft.  Still,  Art  Osgood  was 
less  friendly  with  Johnny  than  most  of  the  men  in  the 
country,  and  just  after  the  murder  he  had  left  the 
country.  Jean  laid  a  good  deal  of  stress  upon  the  cir- 
cumstance of  Art  Osgood's  leaving  on  that  particular 
afternoon,  and  she  seemed  to  resent  it  because  no  one 
had  tried  to  find  Art.     'No  one  bad  seemed  to  think  his 


PICTURES    AND    PLANS      167 

going  at  that  time  had  any  significance,  or  any  bear- 
ing upon  the  murder,  because  he  had  been  planning 
to  leave,  and  had  announced  that  he  would  go  that 
day. 

Jean's  mind,  as  her  bank  account  grew  steadily  to 
something  approaching  dignity,  worked  back  and  forth 
incessantly  over  the  circumstances  surrounding  the  mur- 
der, in  spite  of  Lite's  peculiar  attitude  toward  the  sub- 
ject, which  Jean  felt  but  could  not  understand,  since 
he  invariably  assured  her  that  he  believed  her  dad  was 
innocent,  when  she  asked  him  outright. 

Sometimes,  in  the  throes  of  literary  composition,  she 
could  not  think  of  the  word  that  she  wanted.  Her 
eyes  then  would  wander  around  familiar  objects  in  the 
shabby  little  room,  and  frequently  they  would  come  to 
rest  upon  her  father's  saddle  or  her  father's  chaps :  the 
chaps  especially  seemed  potent  reminders  of  her  father, 
and  drew  her  thoughts  to  him  and  held  them  there. 
The  worn  leather,  stained  with  years  of  hard  usage  and 
wrinkled  permanently  where  they  had  shaped  them- 
selves to  his  legs  in  the  saddle,  brought  his  big,  bluff 
presence  vividly  before  her,  when  she  was  in  a  certain 
receptive  mood.  She  would  forget  all  about  her  story, 
and  the  riding  and  shooting  and  roping  she  had  done 
that  day  to  appease  the  clamorous,  professional  appetite 
of  Eobert  Grant  Eurns,  and  would  sit  and  stare,  and 


168      JEAN   OF    THE    LAZY   A 

think  and  think.  Always  her  thoughts  traveled  in  a 
wide  circle  and  came  back  finally  to  the  starting  point : 
to  free  her  father,  and  to  give  him  back  his  home,  she 
must  have  money.  To  have  money,  she  must  earn  it; 
she  must  work  for  it.  So  then  she  would  give  a  great 
sigh  of  relaxed  nervous  tension  and  go  back  to  her  hero- 
ine and  the  Indians  and  the  mysterious  footsteps  that 
marched  on  moonlight  nights  up  and  down  a  long  porch 
just  outside  windows  that  frequently  framed  white, 
scared  faces  with  wide,  horror-stricken  eyes  which  saw 
nothing  of  the  marcher,  though  the  steps  still  went  up 
and  down. 

It  was  very  creepy,  in  spots.  It  was  so  creepy  that 
one  evening  when  Lite  had  come  to  smoke  a  cigarette  or 
two  in  her  company  and  to  listen  to  her  account  of  the 
day's  happenings,  Lite  noticed  that  when  she  read  the 
creepy  passages  in  her  story,  she  glanced  frequently  over 
her  shoulder. 

"  You  want  to  cut  out  this  story  writing/'  he  said 
abruptly,  when  she  paused  to  find  the  next  page.  "  It's 
bad  enough  to  work  like  you  do  in  the  pictures.  This 
is  going  a  little  too  strong ;  you're  as  jumpy  to-night  as 
a  guilty  conscience.     Cut  it  out." 

"  I'm  all  right.  I'm  just  doing  that  for  dramatic 
effect.  This  is  very  weird,  Lite.  I  ought  to  have  a 
green  shade  on  the  lamp,  to  get  the  proper  effect.     I  — 


PICTURES    AND    PLANS       169 

don't  you  think  —  er  —  those  footsteps  are  terribly 
mysterious  ?  " 

Lite  looked  at  her  sharply  for  a  minute.  "  I  sure 
do/'  he  said  drily.  "  Where  did  you  get  the  idea, 
Jean  ? " 

"  Out  of  my  head,"  she  told  him  airily,  and  went  on 
reading  while  Lite  studied  her  curiously. 

That  night  Jean  awoke  and  heard  stealthy  footsteps, 
like  a  man  walking  in  his  socks  and  no  boots,  going  all 
through  the  house  but  never  coming  to  her  room.  She 
did  not  get  up  to  see  who  it  was,  but  lay  perfectly  still 
and  heard  her  heart  thump.  When  she  saw  a  dim,  yel- 
low ray  of  light  under  the  door  which  opened  into  the 
kitchen^  she  drew  the  blanket  over  her  head,  and  got 
no  comfort  whatever  from  the  feel  of  her  six-shooter 
close  against  her  hand. 

The  next  morning  she  told  herself  that  she  had  given 
in  to  a  fine  case  of  nerves,  and  that  the  mysterious  foot- 
steps of  her  story  had  become  mixed  up  with  the  mid- 
night wanderings  of  a  pack-rat  that  had  somehow  gotten 
into  the  house.  Then  she  remembered  the  bar  of  light 
under  the  door,  and  the  pack-rat  theory  was  spoiled. 

She  had  taken  the  board  off  the  doorway  into  the 
kitchen,  so  that  she  could  use  the  cookstove.  The  man 
could  have  come  in  if  he  had  wanted  to,  and  that  knowl- 
edge she  found  extremely  disquieting.     She  went  all 


170      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

througli  the  house  that  morning,  looking  and  wondering. 
The  living-room  was  now  the  dressing-room  of  Muriel 
and  her  mother,  and  the  make-up  scattered  over  the  cen- 
tertahle  was  undisturbed;  the  wardrobe  of  the  two 
women  had  apparently  been  left  untouched.  Yet  she 
was  sure  that  some  one  had  been  prowling  in  there  in  the 
night.  She  gave  up  the  puzzle  at  last  and  went  back  to 
her  breakfast,  but  before  the  company  arrived  in  the  big, 
black  automobile,  she  had  found  a  stout  hasp  and  two 
staples,  and  had  fixed  the  door  which  led  from  her  room 
into  the  kitchen  so  that  she  could  fasten  it  securely  on 
the  inside. 

Jean  did  not  tell  Lite  about  the  footsteps.  She  was 
afraid  that  he  might  insist  upon  her  giving  up  staying 
at  the  Lazy  A.  Lite  did  not  approve  of  it,  anyway,  and 
it  would  take  very  little  encouragement  in  the  way  of 
extra  risk  to  make  him  stubborn  about  it.  Lite  could 
be  very  obstinate  indeed  upon  occasion,  and  she  was 
afraid  he  might  take  a  stubborn  streak  about  this,  and 
perhaps  ride  over  every  night  to  make  sure  she  was  all 
right,  or  do  something  equally  unnecessary  and  foolish. 

She  did  not  know  Lite  as  well  as  she  imagined,  which 
is  frequently  the  case  with  the  closest  of  friends.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  Jean  had  never  spent  one  night  alone 
on  the  ranch,  even  though  she  did  believe  she  was  doing 
so.     Lite  had  a  homestead  a  few  miles  away,  upon 


PICTURES    AND    PLANS      171 

which  he  was  supposed  to  be  sleeping  occasionally  to 
prove  his  good  faith  in  the  settlement.  Instead  of  spend- 
ing his  nights  there,  however,  he  rode  over  and  slept  in 
the  gable  loft  over  the  old  granary,  where  no  one  ever 
went;  and  he  left  every  morning  just  before  the  sky 
lightened  with  dawn.  He  did  not  know  that  Jean  was 
frightened  by  the  sound  of  footsteps,  but  he  had  heard 
the  man  ride  up  to  the  stable  and  dismount,  and  he 
had  followed  him  to  the  house  and  watched  him  through 
the  uncurtained  Avindows,  and  had  kept  his  fingers  close 
to  his  gun  all  the  while.  Jean  did  not  dream  of  any- 
thing like  that ;  but  Lite,  going  about  his  work  with  the 
easy  calm  that  marked  his  manner  always,  was  quite  as 
puzzled  over  the  errand  of  the  night-prowler  as  was 
Jean  herself. 

For  three  years  Lite  had  lain  aside  the  mystery  of 
the  footprints  on  the  kitchen  floor  on  the  night  after 
the  inquest,  as  a  puzzle  he  would  probably  never  solve. 
He  had  come  to  remember  them  as  a  vagrant  incident 
that  carried  no  especial  meaning.  But  now  they  seemed 
to  carry  a  new  significance, —  if  only  he  could  get  at  the 
key.  Tor  three  years  he  had  gone  along  quietly,  work- 
ing and  saving  all  he  could,  and  looking  after  Jean  in 
an  unobtrusive  way,  believing  that  Aleck  was  guilty, — 
and  being  careful  to  give  no  hint  of  that  belief  to  any 
one.     And  now  Jean  herself  seemed  to  be  leading  him 


172      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY    A 

unconsciously  face  to  face  with  doubt  and  mystery. 
It  tantalized  him.  He  knew  the  prowler,  and  for  that 
reason  he  was  all  the  more  puzzled.  What  had  he 
wanted  or  expected  to  find?  Lite  was  tempted  to  face 
the  man  and  ask  him;  but  on  second  thought  he  knew 
that  would  be  foolish.  He  would  say  nothing  to  Jean. 
He  thanked  the  Lord  she  slept  soundly!  and  he  would 
wait  and  see  what  happened. 

Jean  herself  was  thoughtful  all  that  day,  and  was 
slow  to  lighten  her  mood  or  her  manner  even  when  Gil 
Huntley  rode  beside  her  to  location  and  talked  en- 
thusiastically of  the  great  work  she  was  doing  for  a 
beginner,  and  of  the  greater  work  she  would  do  in  the 
future,  if  only  she  took  advantage  of  her  opportunities. 

"  It  can't  go  on  like  this  forever,"  he  told  her  im- 
pressively for  the  second  time,  before  he  was  sure  of  her 
attention  and  her  interest.  "  Think  of  you,  working 
extra  under  a  three-day  guarantee!  Why,  you're 
what's  making  the  pictures!  I  had  a  letter  from  a 
friend  of  mine;  he's  with  the  Universal.  He'd  been 
down  to  see  one  of  our  pictures, —  that  first  one  you 
worked  in.  You  remember  how  you  came  down  off  that 
bluff,  and  how  you  roped  me  and  jerked  me  down  off 
the  bank  just  as  I'd  got  a  bead  on  Lee  ?  Say !  that  pic- 
ture was  a  riot  I  Gloomy  says  he  never  saw  a  picture  get 
the  hand  that  scene  got.     And  he  wanted  to  know  who 


PICTURES    AND    PLANS      173 

was  doubling  for  Gay,  up  here.  You  see,  he  got  next 
that  it  was  a  double;  he  knows  darned  well  Gay  never 
could  put  over  that  line  of  stuff.  The  photography 
was  dandy, —  Pete's  right  there  when  it  comes  to  camera 
work,  anyway, —  and  that  run  down  the  bluff,  he  said, 
had  people  standing  on  their  hind  legs  even  before  the 
rope  scene.  You  could  tell  it  was  a  girl  and  no  man 
doubling  the  part.  Gloomy  says  everybody  around  the 
studio  has  begun  to  watch  for  our  releases,  and  go  just 
to  see  you  ride  and  rope  and  shoot.  And  Gay  gets  all 
the  press-notices!  Say,  it  makes  me  sick!''  He 
looked  at  Jean  wistfully. 

"  The  trouble  is,  you  don't  realize  w^hat  a  raw  deal 
you're  getting,"  he  said,  with  much  discontent  in  his 
tone.  "  As  an  extra,  you're  getting  fine  treatment  and 
fine  pay;  I  admit  that.  But  the  point  is,  you've  no 
business  being  an  extra.  Where  you  belong  is  playing 
leads.  You  don't  know  what  that  means,  but  I  do. 
Burns  isj'ust  using  you  to  boost  Muriel  Gay,  and  I  say 
it's  the  rawest  deal  I  ever  saw  handed  out  in  the  pic- 
ture game ;  and  believe  me,  I've  seen  some  raw  deals !  " 

"  ]^ow,  now,  don't  get  peevish,  Gil."  Jean's  drawl 
was  soft,  and  her  eyes  were  friendly  and  amused.  So 
far  had  their  friendship  progressed.  "  It's  awfully 
dear  of  you  to  want  to  see  me  a  real  leading  lady.  I  ap- 
preciate it,  and  I  won't  take  off  that  lock  of  hair  I  said 


174      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

I'd  take  when  I  shoot  you  in  the  foreground.  Burns 
wants  a  real  thrilling  effect  close  up,  and  he's  told  me 
five  times  to  remember  and  keep  my  face  turned  away 
from  the  camera,  so  they  won't  see  it  isn't  Gay.  If  I 
turn  around,  there  will  have  to  be  a  re-take,  he  says ;  and 
you  won't  like  that,  Gil,  not  after  you've  heard  a  bullet 
zip  past  your  ear  so  close  that  it  will  fan  your  hair. 
Are  —  aren't  you  afraid  of  me,  Gil  ?  " 

"  Afraid  of  you  ? "  Gil's  horse  swung  closer,  and 
Gil's  eyes  threatened  the  opening  of  a  tacitly  forbidden 
subject. 

"  Because  if  you  get  nervous  and  move  the  least  little 
bit —  To  make  it  look  real,  as  Bobby  described  the 
scene  to  me,  I've  got  to  shoot  the  instant  you  stop  to 
gather  yourself  for  a  spring  at  me.  It's  that  lightning- 
draw  business  I  have  to  do,  Gil.  I'm  to  stand  three 
quarters  to  the  camera,  with  my  face  turned  away, 
watching  you.  You  keep  coming,  and  you  stop  just  an 
instant  when  you're  almost  within  reach  of  me.  In 
that  instant  I  have  to  grab  my  gun  and  shoot;  and  it 
has  to  look  as  if  I  got  you,  Gil.  I've  got  to  come  pretty 
close,  in  order  to  bring  the  gun  in  line  with  you  for  the 
camera.  Bobby  wants  to  show  off  the  quick  draw  that 
Lite  Avery  taught  me.  That's  to  be  the  ^  punch '  in 
the  scene.  I  showed  him  this  morning  what  it  is 
like,  and  Bobby  is  just  tickled  to  death.     You  see,  I 


ii 


PICTURES    AND    PLANS      175 

don't  shoot  the  way  they  usually  do  in  pictures — " 
I  should  say  not !  "  Gil  interrupted  admiringly. 
You  haven't  seen  that  quick  work,  either.  It'll 
look  awfully  real,  Gil,  and  you  mustn't  dodge  or  duck, 
whatever  you  do.  It  will  be  just  as  if  you  really  were 
a  man  I'm  deadly  afraid  of,  that  has  me  cornered  at 
last  against  that  ledge.  I'm  going  to  do  it  as  if  I  meant 
it.  That  will  mean  that  when  you  stop  and  kind  of 
measure  the  distance,  meaning  to  grab  me  before  I  can 
do  anything,  I'll  draw  and  shoot  from  the  level  of  my 
belt;  no  higher,  Gil,  or  it  won't  be  the  lightning-draw 
—  as  advertised.  I  won't  have  time  to  take  a  fine  aim, 
you  know." 

"  Listen !  "  said  Gil,  leaning  toward  her  with  his  eyes 
very  earnest.  "  I  know  all  about  that.  I  heard  you  and 
Burns  talking  about  it.  You  go  ahead  and  shoot,  and 
put  that  scene  over  big.  Don't  you  worry  about  me; 
I'm  going  to  play  up  to  you,  if  I  can.  Listen !  Pete's 
just  waiting  for  a  chance  to  register  your  face  on  the 
film.  Burns  has  planned  his  scenes  to  prevent  that, 
but  we're  just  lying  low  till  the  chance  comes.  It's 
got  to  be  dramatic,  and  it's  got  to  seem  accidental.  Get 
me?  I  shouldn't  have  told  you,  but  I  can't  seem  to 
trick  you,  Jean.  You're  the  kind  of  a  girl  a  fellow's 
got  to  play  fair  with." 

"  Bobby  has  told  me  five  times  already  to  remember 


176      JEAN   OF    THE    LAZY   A 

and, keep  my  face  away  from  the  camera,"  Jean  pointed 
out  the  second  time.  "  Makes  me  feel  as  if  I  had  lost 
my  nose,  or  was  cross-eyed  or  something.  I  do  feel  as 
if  I'd  lose  my  job,  Gil.'' 

"  'No,  you  wouldn't ;  all  he'd  do  would  be  to  have  a 
re-take  of  the  whole  scene,  and  maybe  step  around  like 
a  turkey  in  the  snow,  and  swear  to  himself.  Anyway, 
you  can  forget  what  I've  said,  if  you'll  feel  more  com- 
fortable. It's  up  to  Pete  and  me,  and  we'll  put  it  over 
smooth,  or  we  won't  do  it  at  all.  Bobby  won't  realize 
it's  happened  till  he  hears  from  it  afterwards.  Neither 
will  you."  He  turned  his  grease-painted  face  toward 
her  hearteningly  and  smiled  as  endearingly  as  the  sin- 
ister, painted  lines  would  allow. 

"  Listen !  "  he  repeated  as  a  final  encouragement,  be- 
cause he  had  sensed  her  preoccupation  and  had  misread 
it  for  w^orry  over  the  picture.  "  You  go  ahead  and 
shoot,  and  don't  bother  about  me.  Make  it  real. 
Shoot  as  close  as  you  like.  If  you  pink  me  a  little  I 
won't  care, —  if  you'll  promise  to  be  my  nurse.  I  want 
a  vacation,  anyway." 


CHAPTER  XIV 

PUNCH    VERSUS    PRESTIGE 

IT  seems  to  be  a  popular  belief  among  those  who  are 
unfamiliar  with  the  business  of  making  motion 
pictures  that  all  dangerous  or  difficult  feats  are  merely 
tricks  of  the  camera,  and  that  the  actors  themselves 
take  no  risks  whatever.  The  truth  is  that  they  take  a 
good  many  more  risks  than  the  camera  ever  records; 
and  that  directors  who  worship  what  they  call  "  punch  " 
in  their  scenes  are  frequently  as  tender  of  the  physical 
safety  of  their  actors  as  was  Napoleon  or  any  other  great 
warrior  who  measured  results  rather  than  wounds. 

Robert  Grant  Burns  had  discovered  that  he  had  at 
least  two  persons  in  his  company  who  were  perfectly 
willing  to  do  anything  he  asked  them  to  do.  He  had 
set  tasks  before  Jean  Douglas  that  many  a  man  would 
have  refused  without  losing  his  self-respect,  and  Jean 
had  performed  those  tasks  with  enthusiasm.  She  had 
let  herself  down  over  a  nasty  bit  of  the  rim-rock  whose 
broken  line  extended  half  around  the  coulee  bluff,  with 
only  her  rope  between  herself  and  broken  bones,  and 
with  her  blond  wig  properly  tousled  and  her  face  turned 


178      JEAN   OF    THE    LAZY   A 

always  towards  the  rock  wall,  lest  the  camera  should 
reveal  the  fact  that  she  was  not  Muriel  Gay.  She  had 
climbed  that  same  rock-rim,  with  the  aid  of  that  same 
rope,  and  with  her  face  hidden  as  usual  from  the  camera. 
She  had  been  bound  and  gagged  and  flung  across  Gil 
Huntley's  saddle  and  carried  away  at  a  sharp  gallop, 
and  she  had  afterwards  freed  herself  from  her  bonds  in 
the  semi-darkness  of  a  hut  that  half  concealed  her  fea- 
tures, and  had  stolen  the  knife  from  Gil  Huntley's 
belt  while  he  slept,  and  crept  away  to  where  the  horses 
w^ere  picketed.  In  the  revealing  light  of  a  very  fine 
moon-effect,  which  was  a  triumph  of  Pete's  skill,  she 
slashed  a  rope  that  held  a  high-strung  ^^  mustang"  (so 
called  in  the  scenario),  and  had  leaped  upon  his  bare 
back  and  gone  hurtling  out  of  that  scene  and  into  an- 
other, where  she  was  riding  furiously  over  dangerously 
rough  ground,  the  whole  outlaw  band  in  pursuit  and 
silhouetted  against  the  skyline  and  the  moon  (which 
was  another  photographic  triumph  of  Pete  Lowry). 

Gil  Huntley  had  also  done  many  things  that  were 
risky.  Jean  had  shot  at  him  with  real  bullets  so  many 
time^  that  her  nervousness  on  this  particular  day  was 
rather  unaccountable  to  him.  Jean  had  lassoed  him 
and  dragged  him  behind  Pard  through  brush.  She 
had  pulled  him  from  a  quicksand  bed, —  made  of  cement 
that  showed  a  strong  tendency  to  "  set "  about  his  form 


PUNCH    VERSUS    PRESTIGE     179 

before  she  could  rescue  him, —  and  she  had  fought  with 
him  on  the  edge  of  a  cliff  and  had  thrown  him  over; 
and  his  director,  anxious  for  the  "  punch  '^  that  was  his 
fetish,  had  insisted  on  a  panorama  of  the  fall,  so  that 
there  was  no  chance  for  Gil  to  save  himself  the  bruises 
he  got.  Gil  Huntley's  part  it  was  always  to  die  a 
violent  death,  or  to  be  captured  spectacularly,  because 
he  was  the  villain  whose  horrible  example  must  bear  a 
moral  to  youthful  brains. 

Since  Jean  had  become  one  of  the  company,  he  nearly 
always  died  at  her  hands  or  was  captured  by  her.  This 
left  Muriel  Gay  unruffled  and  unhurt,  so  that  she  could 
weep  and  accept  the  love  of  Lee  Milligan  in  the  artistic 
ending  of  which  Robert  Grant  Burns  was  so  fond. 

Jean  had  never  before  considered  it  necessary  to  warn 
Gil  and  implore  him  not  to  be  nervous,  and  Gil  took  her 
solicitude  as  an  encouraging  sign  and  was  visibly 
cheered  thereby.  He  knew  little  of  guns  and  fine  marks- 
manship, and  he  did  not  know  that  it  is  extremely  diffi- 
cult to  shoot  a  revolver  accurately  and  instantaneously; 
whereas  Jean  knew  very  well  that  Gil  Huntley  might 
be  thrown  off  ledges  every  day  in  the  week  without  tak- 
ing the  risk  he  would  take  that  day. 

The  scene  ivas  to  close  a  full  reel  of  desperate  at- 
tempts upon  the  part  of  Gil  Huntley  to  win  Muriel; 
such  desperate  attempts,  indeed,  that  Muriel  Gay  spent 


180      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY    A 

most  of  the  time  sitting  at  ease  in  the  shade,  talking 
with  Lee  Milligan,  who  was  two  thirds  in  love  with  her 
and  had  half  his  love  returned,  while  Jean  played  her 
part  for  her.  Sometimes  Muriel  would  be  called  upon 
to  assume  the  exact  pose  which  Jean  had  assumed  in  a 
previous  scene,  for  ^^  close-up "  that  would  reveal  to 
audiences  Muriel's  well-known  prettiness  and  help  to 
carry  along  the  deception.  Each  morning  the  two  stood 
side  by  side  and  were  carefully  inspected  by  Robert 
Grant  Burns,  to  make  sure  that  hair  and  costumes  were 
exactly  alike  in  the  smallest  detail.  This  also  helped 
to  carry  on  the  deception  —  to  those  who  were  not  aware 
of  Muriel's  limitations.  Their  faces  were  not  at  all 
alike;  and  that  is  why  Jean's  face  must  never  be  seen 
in  a  picture. 

This  shooting  scene  was  a  fitting  climax  to  a  long  and 
desperate  chase  over  a  difficult  trail;  so  difficult  that 
Pard  stumbled  and  fell, —  supposedly  with  a  broken 
leg, —  and  Jean  must  run  on  and  on  afoot,  and  climb 
over  rocks  and  spring  across  dangerous  crevices.  She 
was  not  supposed  to  know  where  her  flight  was  taking 
her.  Sometimes  the  camera  caught  her  silhouetted 
against  the  sky  (Burns  was  partial  to  skyline  silhou- 
ettes), and  sometimes  it  showed  her  quite  close, —  in 
which  case  it  would  be  Muriel  instead  of  Jean, —  cling- 
ing desperately  to  the  face  of  a  ledge  (ledges  were  also 


PUNCH    VERSUS    PRESTIGE     181 

favorite  scenes),  and  seeking  with  hands  or  feet  for  a 
hold  upon  the  rough  face  of  the  rock.  During  the  last 
two  or  three  scenes  Gil  Huntley  had  been  shown  gain- 
ing upon  her. 

So  they  came  to  the  location  where  the  shooting  scene 
was  to  be  made  that  morning.  Burns,  with  the  camera 
and  Pete  and  Muriel  and  her  mother  and  Lee  Milligan, 
drove  to  the  place  in  the  machine.  Jean  and  Gil 
Huntley  found  them  comfortably  disposed  in  the  shade, 
out  of  range  of  the  camera  which  Pete  was  setting  up 
somewhat  closer  than  usual,  under  the  direction  of 
Burns. 

"  There  won't  be  any  rehearsal  of  this,"  Burns  stated 
at  last,  stepping  back.  "  When  it's  done,  if  you  don't 
bungle  the  scene,  it'll  be  done.  You  stand  here,  Jean, 
and  kind  of  lean  against  the  rock  as  if  you're  all  in  from 
that  chase.  You  hear  Gil  coming,  and  you  start  for- 
ward and  listen,  and  look, —  how  far  can  she  turn,  Pete, 
without  showing  too  much  of  her  face  ?  " 

Pete  squinted  into  the  finder  and  gave  the  informa- 
tion. 

"  Well,  Gil,  you  come  from  behind  that  bush.  She'll 
be  looking  toward  you  then  without  turning  too  much. 
You  grin,  and  come  up  with  that  eager,  I-got-you-now 
look.  Don't  hurry  too  much;  we'll  give  this  scene 
plenty   of   time.     This   is   the   feature    scene.     Jean, 


182      JEAN   OF   THE   LAZY  A 

you're  at  the  end  of  your  rope.  You  couldn't  run  an- 
other step  if  you  wanted  to,  and  you're  cornered  any- 
way, so  you  can't  get  away;  get  me?  You're  scared. 
Did  you  ever  get  scared  in  your  life  ?  " 

^^Yes,"  said  Jean  simply,  remembering  last  night 
when  she  had  pulled  the  blanket  over  her  head. 

"  Well,  you  think  of  that  time  you  were  scared.  And 
you  make  yourself  think  that  you're  going  to  shoot  the 
thing  that  scared  you.  You  don't  put  in  half  the  punch 
when  you  shoot  blanks ;  I've  noticed  that  all  along.  So 
that's  why  you  shoot  a  bullet.  See?  And  you  come 
as  close  to  Gil  as  you  can  and  not  hit  him.  Gil,  when 
you're  shot,  you  go  down  all  in  a  heap ;  you  know  what 
I  mean.  And  Jean,  when  he  falls,  you  start  and  lean 
forward,  looking  at  him, —  remember  and  keep  your  face 
away  from  the  camera !  — -  and  then  you  start  toward 
him  kind  of  horrified.  The  scene  stops  right  there,  just 
as  you  start  towards  him.  Then  Gay  takes  it  up  and 
does  the  remorse  and  horror  stuff  because  she's  killed  a 
man.     That  will  be  a  close-up. 

"All  right,  now;  take  your  places.  Sure  your  gun 
is  loose  so  you  can  pull  it  quick  ?  That's  the  feature  of 
this  scene,  remember.  You  want  to  get  it  across  hig! 
And  make  it  real, —  the  scare,  and  all  that.  Hey,  you 
women  get  behind  the  camera!  Bullets  glance,  some- 
times,  and  play  the  very  mischief."     He  looked  all 


PUNCH    VERSUS    PRESTIGE     183 

around  to  make  sure  that  everything  was  as  it  should 
be,  faced  Jean  again,  and  raised  his  hand. 

"  All  ready  ?     Start  your  action !     Camera !  " 

Jean  had  never  before  been  given  so  much  dramatic 
work  to  do,  and  Burns  watched  her  anxiously,  wishing 
that  he  dared  cut  the  scene  in  two  and  give  Muriel  that 
tense  interval  when  Gil  Huntley  came  creeping  into  the 
scene  from  behind  the  bush.  But  after  the  first  few 
seconds  his  strained  expression  relaxed;  anxiety  gave 
place  to  something  like  surprise. 

Jean  stood  leaning  heavily  against  the  rock,  panting 
from  the  flight  of  the  day  before, —  for  so  must  emo- 
tion be  carried  over  into  the  next  day  when  photo- 
players  work  at  their  profession.  Her  face  was  dropped 
upon  her  arms  flung  up  against  the  rock  in  an  attitude 
of  complete  exhaustion  and  despair.  Burns  involun- 
tarily nodded  his  head  approvingly;  the  girl  had  the 
idea,  all  right,  even  if  she  never  had  been  trained  to  act 
a  part. 

"  Come  into  the  scene,  Gil  I  "  he  commanded,  when 
Jean  made  a  move  as  though  she  was  tempted  to  drop 
down  upon  the  ground  and  sob  hysterically.  ""  Jean, 
register  that  you  hear  him  coming." 

Jean's  head  came  up  and  she  listened,  every  muscle 
stiffening  with  fear.  She  turned  her  face  toward  Gil, 
who  stopped  and  looked  at  her  most  villainously.     Gil, 


184      JEAN   OF    THE    LAZY   A 

you  must  know,  had  come  from  "  legitimate  "  and  was 
a  clever  actor.  Jean  recoiled  a  little  before  the  leering 
face  of  him ;  pressed  her  shoulder  hard  against  the  ledge 
that  had  trapped  her,  and  watched  him  in  an  agony  of 
fear.  One  felt  that  she  did,  though  one  could  not  see 
her  face.  Gil  spoke  a  few  words  and  came  on  with  a 
certain  tigerish  assurance  of  his  power,  but  Jean  did  not 
move  a  muscle.  She  had  backed  as  far  away  from  him 
as  she  could  get.  She  was  not  the  kind  to  weep  and 
plead  with  him.  She  just  waited ;  and  one  felt  that  she 
was  keyed  up  to  the  supreme  moment  of  her  life. 

Gil  came  closer  and  closer,  and  there  was  a  look  in  his 
eyes  that  almost  frightened  Jean,  accustomed  as  she  had 
become  to  his  acting  a  part;  there  was  an  intensity  of 
purpose  which  she  instinctively  felt  was  real.  She  did 
not  know  what  it  was  he  had  in  mind,  but  whatever  it 
was,  she  knew  what  it  meant.  He  was  almost  within 
reach,  so  close  that  one  saw  Jean  shrink  a  little  from  his 
nearness.  He  stopped  and  gathered  himself  for  a  quick, 
forward  lunge  — 

The  two  women  screamed,  though  they  had  been  ex- 
pecting that  swift  drawing  of  Jean's  gun  and  the  shot 
that  seemed  to  sound  the  instant  her  hand  dropped. 
Gil  stiffened,  and  his  hand  flew  up  to  his  temple.  His 
eyes  became  two  staring  questions  that  bored  into  the 
soul  of  Jean.     His  hand  dropped  to  his  side,  and  his 


PUNCH    VERSUS    PRESTIGE     185 

head  sagged  forward.  He  lurched,  tried  to  steady  him- 
self and  then  went  down  limply. 

Jean  dropped  her  gun  and  darted  toward  him,  her 
face  like  chalk,  as  she  turned  it  for  one  horrified  instant 
toward  Burns.  She  went  down  on  her  knees  and  lifted 
GiFs  head,  looking  at  the  red  blotch  on  his  temple  and 
the  trickle  that  ran  down  his  cheek.  She  laid  his  head 
down  with  a  gentleness  wholly  unconscious,  and  looked 
again  at  Burns.  "  I've  killed  him,"  she  said  in  a  small, 
dry,  flat  voice.  She  put  out  her  hands  gropingly  and 
fell  forward  across  GiPs  inert  body.  It  was  the  first 
time  in  her  life  that  Jean  had  ever  fainted. 

"  Stop  the  camera !  "  Burns  croaked  tardily,  and  Pete 
stopped  turning.  Pete  had  that  little,  twisted  grin 
on  his  face,  and  he  was  perfectly  calm  and  self-pos- 
sessed. 

^^You  sure  got  the  punch  that  time,  Bums/'  he  re- 
marked unfeelingly,  while  he  held  his  palm  over  the  lens 
and  gave  the  crank  another  turn  or  two  to  divide  that 
scene  from  the  next. 

"  She's  fainted !  She's  hit  him !  "  cried  Burns,  and 
waddled  over  to  where  the  two  of  them  lay.  The  two 
women  drew  farther  away,  clinging  to  each  other  with 
excited  exclamations. 

And  then  Gil  Huntley  lifted  himself  carefully  so  as 
not  to  push  Jean  upon  the  ground,  and  when  he  was 


186      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

sitting  up,  he  took  her  in  his  arms  with  some  remorse 
and  a  good  deal  of  tenderness. 

"  How  was  that  for  a  punch  ? ''  he  inquired  of  his 
director.  "  I  didn't  tell  her  I  was  going  to  furnish  the 
blood-sponge;  I  thought  it  might  rattle  her.  I  never 
thought  she'd  take  it  so  hard  — '' 

Robert  Grant  Burns  stopped  and  looked  at  him  in 
heavy  silence.  ^'  Good  Lord !  "  he  snapped  out  at  last. 
"  I  dunno  whether  to  fire  you  off  the  job  —  or  raise 
your  salary!  You  got  the  punch,  all  right.  And 
the  chances  are  you've  ruined  her  nerve  for  shooting, 
into  the  bargain."  He  stood  looking  down  perturbedly 
at  Gil,  who  was  smoothing  Jean's  hair  back  from 
her  forehead  after  the  manner  of  men  who  feel  ten- 
derly tow^ard  the  woman  who  cries  or  faints  in  their 
presence.  "  I'm  after  the  punch  every  time,"  Burns 
went  on  ruefully,  "  but  there's  no  use  being  a  hog  about 
it.  Where's  that  water-bag,  Lee?  Go  get  it  out  of 
the  machine.  Say  I  Can't  you  women  do  something 
besides  stand  there  and  howl  ?  Nobody's  hurt,  or  going 
to  be." 

While  Muriel  and  Gil  Huntley  did  w^hat  they  could 
to  bring  Jean  back  to  consciousness  and  composure,  Rob- 
ert Grant  Burns  paced  up  and  down  and  debated  within 
himself  a  subject  which  might  have  been  called  "  punch 
versus  prestige."     Should  he  let  that  scene  stand,  or 


PUNCH    VERSUS    PRESTIGE     187 

should  he  order  a  ^'  re-take  "  because  Jean  had,  after  all, 
done  the  dramatic  part,  the  ^^  remorse  stuff "  ?  Of 
course,  when  Pete  sent  the  film  in,  the  trimmers  could 
cut  the  scene;  they  probably  would  cut  the  scene  just 
where  Gil  went  down  in  a  decidedly  realistic  heap.  But 
it  hurt  the  professional  soul  of  Robert  Grant  Burns  to 
retake  a  scene  so  compellingly  dramatic,  because  it  had 
been  so  absolutely  real. 

Jean  was  sitting  up  with  her  back  against  the  ledge 
looking  rather  pale  and  feeling  exceedingly  foolish,  while 
Gil  Huntley  explained  to  her  about  the  "  blood-sponge  " 
and  how  he  had  held  it  concealed  in  his  hand  until  the 
right  moment,  and  had  used  it  in  the  interest  of  realism 
and  not  to  frighten  her,  as  she  might  have  reason  to  sus- 
pect. Gil  Huntley  was  showing  a  marked  tendency  to 
repeat  himself.  He  had  three  times  assured  her 
earnestly  that  he  did  not  mean  to  scare  her  so,  when 
the  voice  of  the  chief  reminded  him  that  this  was  merely 
an  episode  in  the  day's  work.  He  juQiped  up  and  gave 
his  attention  to  Burns. 

"  Gil,  take  that  same  position  you  had  when  you  fell. 
Put  a  little  more  blood  on  your  face;  you  wiped  most 
of  it  off.  That  right  leg  is  sprawled  out  too  far.  Draw 
it  up  a  little.  Throw  out  your  left  arm  a  little  more. 
Whoa —  Enough  is  plenty.  ]^ow^.  Gay,  you  take 
Jean's  gun  and  hold  it  down  by  your  side,  where  her 


188      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

hand  dropped  right  after  she  fired.  You  stand  right 
about  here,  where  her  tracks  are.  Get  into  her  tracks ! 
We're  picking  up  the  scene  right  where  Gil  fell.  She 
looked  straight  into  the  camera  and  spoiled  the  rest,  or 
I'd  let  it  go  in.  Some  acting,  if  you  ask  me,  seeing  it 
wasn't  acting  at  all."  He  sent  one  of  his  slant-eyed 
glances  toward  Jean,  who  bit  her  lips  and  looked  away. 

*^  Lean  forward  a  little,  and  hold  that  gun  like  you 
knew  what  it  was  made  for,  anyway !  "  He  regarded 
Muriel  glumly.  "  Say !  that  ain't  a  stick  of  candy 
you're  trying  to  hide  in  your  skirt,"  he  pointed  out, 
with  an  exasperated,  rising  inflection  at  the  end  of  the 
sentence.  "  John  Jimpson !  If  I  could  take  you  two 
girls  to  pieces  and  make  one  out  of  the  two  of  you,  I'd 
have  an  actress  that  could  play  Western  leads,  maybe ! 

"  Oh,  well  —  thunder !  All  you  can  do  is  put  over 
the  action  so  they'll  forget  the  gun.  Say,  you  drop  it 
the  second  the  camera  starts.  You  pick  up  the  action 
where  Jean  dropped  the  gun  and  started  for  Gil.  See 
if  you  can  put  it  over  the  way  she  did.  She  really 
thought  she'd  killed  him,  remember.  You  saw  the  real, 
honest-to-John,  horror-dope  that  time.  E^ow  see  how 
close  you  can  copy  it. 

"All  ready?  Start  your  action!''  he  barked. 
"  Camera !  " 

Brutally  absorbed  in  his  work  he  might  be;  callous 


PUNCH   VERSUS    PRESTIGE     189 

to  the  tragedy  in  Jean's  eyes  at  what  might  have  hap- 
pened; unfeeling  in  his  greedy  seizure  of  her  horror 
as  good  "  stuff ''  for  Muriel  Gay  to  mimic.  Yet  the 
man's  energy  was  dynamic ;  his  callousness  was  born  of 
his  passion  for  the  making  of  good  pictures.  He  swept 
even  Jean  out  of  the  emotional  whirlpool  and  into  the 
calm,  steady  current  of  the  work  they  had  to  do. 

He  instructed  Pete  to  count  as  spoiled  those  fifteen 
feet  of  film  which  recorded  Jean's  swift  horror.  But 
Pete  Lowry  did  not  always  follow  slavishly  his  instruc- 
tions. He  sent  the  film  in  as  it  was,  without  comment. 
Then  he  and  Gil  Huntley  counted  on  their  fingers  the 
number  of  days  that  would  probably  elapse  before  they 
might  hope  to  hear  the  result,  and  exchanged  knowing 
glances  now  and  then  when  Robert  Grant  Bums  seemed 
especially  careful  that  Jean's  face  should  not  be  seen 
by  the  recording  eye  of  the  camera.  And  they  waited ; 
and  after  awhile  they  began  to  show  a  marked  interest 
in  the  mail  from  the  west. 


CHAPTER  XV 

A  LEADING  LADY  TIIEY  WOULD  MAKE  OF  JEAN 

SOMETIMES  events  follow  docilely  the  plans  that 
would  lead  them  out  of  the  future  of  possibilities 
and  into  the  present  of  actualities,  and  sometimes  they 
bring  with  them  other  events  which  no  man  may  foresee 
unless  he  is  indeed  a  prophet.  You  would  never  think, 
for  instance,  that  Gil  Huntley  and  his  blood  sponge 
would  pull  from  the  future  a  chain  of  incidents  that 
would  eventually  —  well,  never  mind  what.  Just  fol- 
low the  chain  of  incidents  and  see  what  lies  at  the  end. 

Pete  Lowry  and  Gil  had  planned  cunningly  for  a  cer- 
tain readjustment  of  Jean^s  standing  in  the  company, 
for  no  deeper  reasons  than  their  genuine  liking  for  the 
girl  and  a  common  human  impulse  to  have  a  hand  in 
the  ordering  of  their  little  world.  In  ten  days  Robert 
Grant  Burns  received  a  letter  from  Hewitt,  president 
of  the  Great  Western  Film  Company,  which  amply  ful- 
filled those  plans,  and,  as  I  said,  opened  the  way  for 
other  events  quite  unforeseen. 

There  were  certain  orders  from  the  higher-ups  which 
Robert  Grant  Burns  must  heed.     They  were,  briefly,  the 


A   LEADING   LADY  191 

immediate  transfer  of  Muriel  Gay  to  the  position  of 
leading  woman  in  a  new  company  which  was  being  sent 
to  Santa  Barbara  to  make  light  comedy-dramas.  Kob- 
ert  Grant  Burns  grunted  when  he  read  that,  though  it 
was  a  step  up  the  ladder  for  Muriel  which  she  would  be 
glad  to  take.  The  next  paragraph  instructed  him  to 
place  the  young  woman  who  had  been  doubling  for  Miss 
Gay  in  the  position  which  Miss  Gay  would  leave  va- 
cant. It  was  politely  suggested  that  he  adapt  the  lead- 
ing woman's  parts  to  the  ability  of  this  young  woman ; 
which  meant  that  he  must  write  his  scenarios  especially 
with  her  in  mind.  He  was  informed  that  he  should 
feature  the  young  woman  in  her  remarkable  horseman- 
ship, etc.  It  was  pointed  out  that  her  work  was  being 
noticed  in  the  Western  features  which  Robert  Grant 
Burns  had  been  sending  in,  and  that  other  film  com- 
panies would  no  doubt  make  overtures  shortly,  in  the 
hope  of  securing  her  services.  Under  separate  cover 
they  were  mailing  a  contract  which  would  effectually 
forestall  such  overtures,  and  they  were  relying  upon  him 
to  see  that  she  signed  up  with  the  Great  Western  as  per 
contract.  Pinally,  it  was  suggested,  since  Mr.  Dewitt 
chose  always  to  suggest  rather  than  to  command,  that 
Robert  Grant  Burns  consider  the  matter  of  writing  a 
series  of  short  stories  having  some  connecting  thread 
of  plot  and  featuring  this  Miss  Douglas.     (This,  by  the 


192      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

way,  was  the  beginning  of  the  serial  form  of  motion- 
picture,  plays  which  has  since  become  so  popular. ) 

Robert  Grant  Burns  read  that  letter  through  slowly, 
and  then  sat  down  heavily  in  an  old  arm-chair  in  the 
hotel  office,  lighted  one  of  his  favorite  fat,  black  cigars, 
and  mouthed  it  absently,  while  he  read  the  letter  through 
again.  He  said  "  John  Jimpson !  "  just  above  a  whis- 
per. He  held  the  letter  in  his  two  hands  and  regarded 
it  strangely.  Then  he  looked  up,  caught  the  quizzical, 
inquiring  glance  of  Pete  Lowry,  and  beckoned  that  se- 
cret-smiling individual  over  to  him.  ^^  Read  that !  " 
he  grunted.  "Read  it  and  tell  me  what  you  think 
of  it." 

Pete  Lowry  read  it  carefully,  and  grinned  when  he 
handed  it  back.  He  did  not,  however,  tell  Robert  Grant 
Burns  just  exactly  what  he  thought  of  it.  He  merely 
said  that  it  had  to  come  sometime,  he  guessed. 

"  She  can't  put  over  the  dramatic  stuff,"  objected 
Robert  Grant  Burns.  "  She's  got  the  face  for  it,  all 
right,  and  when  she  registers  real  emotions,  it  gets  over 
big.  The  bottled-up  kind  of  people  always  do.  But 
she's  never  acted  an  emotion  she  didn't  feel  — " 

"  How  about  that  all-in  stuff,  and  the  listening-and- 
waiting  business  she  put  across  before  she  took  a  shot  at 
Gil  that  time  she  fainted  ?  "  Pete  reminded  him.  "  If 
you  ask  me,  that  little  girl  can  ad/^ 


A   LEADING    LADY  193 

"  Well,  whether  she  can  or  not,  she's  got  to  try  it," 
said  Burns  with  some  foreboding.  "  She's  been  going 
big,  with  Gay  to  do  all  the  close-up,  dramatic  work. 
The  trouble  is,  Pete,  that  girl  always  does  as  she  darn 
pleases !  If  I  put  her  opposite  Lee  in  a  scene  and  tell 
her  to  act  like  she  is  in  love  with  him,  and  that  he's  to 
kiss  her  and  she's  to  kiss  back, — "  he  flung  out  his 
hands  expressively.  "  You  must  know  the  rest,  as  well 
as  I  do.  She'd  turn  around  and  give  me  a  call-down, 
and  get  on  her  horse  and  ride  off ;  and  I  and  my  picture 
could  go  to  thunder,  for  all  of  her.  That's  the  point; 
she  ain't  been  through  the  mill.  She  don't  know  any- 
thing about  taking  orders  —  from  me  or  anybody  else." 
It  is  a  pity  that  Lite  did  not  hear  that !  He  might  have 
amended  the  statement  a  little.  Jean  had  been  taking 
orders  enough;  she  knew  a  great  deal  about  receiving 
ultimatums.  The  trouble  was  that  she  seldom  paid  any 
attention  to  them.  Lite  was  accustomed  to  that,  but 
Robert  Grant  Bums  was  not,  and  it  irked  him  sore. 

"  Well,  she's  sure  got  the  screen  personality,"  Pete 
defended.  "  I've  said  it  all  along.  That  girl  don't 
have  to  act.  Put  her  in  the  part,  and  she  is  the  part ! 
She's  got  something  better  than  technique.  Burns.  She's 
got  imagination.  She  puts  herself  in  a  character  and 
lives  it." 

"  Put  her  on  a  horse  and  she  does,"  Bums  conceded 


194      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

gloomily.  "  But  will  you  tell  me  what  kind  of  work 
she'll  make  of  interior  scenes,  and  love  scenes,  and  all 
that?  YouVe  got  to  have  it,  to  pad  Q,ut  your  story. 
You  can't  let  your  leading  character  do  a  whole  two- 
or  three-reel  picture  on  horseback.  There  wouldn't  be 
any  contrast.  Dewitt  don't  know  that  girl  the  way  I 
do.  If  he'd  had  to  side-step  and  scheme  and  give  in 
the  way  I've  done  to  keep  her  working,  he  wouldn't  put 
her  playing  straight  leads,  not  until  she'd  had  a  year  or 
two  of  training  — " 

"  Taming  is  a  better  word,"  Pete  suggested  drily. 
*^  There'll  be  fun  when  she  gets  to  playing  love  scenes 
opposite  Lee.  You  better  let  him  take  the  heavies,  and 
put  Gil  in  for  leads.  Burns." 

Robert  Grant  Burns  was  so  cast  down  by  the  prospect 
that  he  made  no  attempt  to  reply,  beyond  grunting 
something  about  preferring  to  drive  a  team  of  balky 
mules  to  making  Jean  do  something  she  did  not  want  to 
do.  But,  such  is  the  mind  trained  to  a  profession,  in- 
sensibly he  drifted  away  into  the  world  of  his  imagina- 
tion, and  began  to  draw  therefrom  the  first  tenuous 
threads  of  a  plot  wherein  Jean's  peculiar  accomplish- 
ments v/ere  to  be  featured.  Robert  Grant  Burns  had 
long  ago  learned  to  adjust  himself  to  circumstances 
which  in  themselves  were  not  to  his  liking.  He  ad- 
justed himself  now  to  the  idea  of  making  Jean  the 


A   LEADING   LADY  195 

Western  star  his  employers  seemed  to  think  was  in- 
evitable. 

That  night  before  he  went  to  bed  he  wrote  a  play 
which  had  in  it  fifty-two  scenes.  Thirty-five  of  them 
were  what  is  known  technically  as  exteriors.  In  most 
of  them  Jean  was  to  ride  on  horseback  through  wild 
places.  The  rest  were  dramatic  close-ups.  Robert 
Grant  Burns  went  over  it  carefully  when  it  was  finished, 
and  groaning  inwardly  he  cut  out  two  love  scenes  which 
were  tense,  and  which  Muriel  Gay  and  Lee  Milligan 
would  have  ^'  eaten  up/'  as  he  mentally  expressed  it. 
The  love  interest,  he  realized  bitterly,  must  be  touched 
upon  lightly  in  his  scenarios  from  now  on ;  which  would 
have  lightened  appreciably  the  heart  of  Lite  Avery,  if 
he  had  only  known  it,  and  would  have  erased  from  his 
mind  a  good  many  depressing  visions  of  Jean  as  the 
film  sweetheart  of  those  movie  men  whom  he  secretly 
hated. 

Jean  did  not  hesitate  ^yq  minutes  before  she  signed 
the  contract  which  Burns  presented  to  her  the  next 
morning.  She  was  human,  and  she  had  learned  enough 
about  the  business  to  see  that,  speaking  from  a  purely 
professional  point  of  view,  she  was  extremely  fortunate. 
Not  every  girl,  surely,  can  hope  to  jump  in  a  few  weeks 
from  the  lowly  position  of  an  inexperienced  "  extra '' 
to  the  supposedly  exalted  one  of  leading  woman.     And 


196      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

to  her  that  hundred  dollars  a  week  which  the  contract 
insured  her  looked  a  fortune.  It  spelled  home  to  her, 
and  the  vindication  of  her  beloved  dad,  of  whom  she 
dared  not  think  sometimes,  it  hurt  her  so. 

Her  book  was  not  progressing  as  fast  as  she  had  ex- 
pected when  she  began  it.  She  had  been  working  at  it 
sporadically  now  for  eight  weeks,  and  she  had  only  ten 
chapters  done, —  and  some  of  these  were  terribly  short. 
She  had  looked  through  all  of  the  novels  that  she 
owned,  and  had  computed  the  average  number  of  chap- 
ters in  each;  thirty  she  decided  would  be  a  good,  con- 
servative number  to  write.  She  had  even  divided  those 
thirty  into  three  parts,  and  had  impartially  allotted  ten 
to  adventure,  ten  to  mystery  and  horror,  and  ten  to  love- 
making.  Such  an  arrangement  should  please  every- 
body, surely,  and  need  only  be  worked  out  smoothly  to 
prove  most  satisfying. 

But,  as  it  happened,  comedy  would  creep  into  the 
mystery  and  horror,  which  she  mentally  lumped  to- 
gether as  agony.  Adventure  ran  riot,  and  straight  love- 
making  chapters  made  her  sleepy,  they  bored  her  so. 
She  had  tried  one  or  two,  and  she  had  found  it  impos- 
sible to  concentrate  her  mind  upon  them.  Instead,  she 
had  sat  and  planned  what  she  would  do  with  the  money 
that  was  steadily  accumulating  in  the  bank;  a  pitiful 
little  sum,  to  be  sure,  to  those  who  count  by  the  thou- 


A   LEADING   LADY  197 

sands,  but  cheering  enough  to  Jean,  who  had  never  be- 
fore had  any  money  of  her  own. 

So  she  signed  the  contract  and  worked  that  day  so 
light-heartedly  that  Robert  Grant  Burns  forgot  his  pes- 
simism. When  the  light  began  to  fade  and  grow  yel- 
low, and  the  big  automobile  went  purring  down  the  trail 
to  town,  she  rode  on  to  the  Bur  ISTothing  to  find  Lite, 
and  tell  him  how  fortune  had  coisie  and  tapped  her  on 
the  shoulder.  * 

She  did  not  see  Lite  anywhere  about  the  ranch,  and 
so  she  did  not  put  her  hopes  and  her  plans  and  her  good 
fortune  into  speech.  She  did  see  her  Aunt  Ella,  who 
straightway  informed  her  that  people  were  talking  about 
the  way  she  rode  here  and  there  with  those  painted-up 
people,  and  let  the  men  put  their  arms  around  her  and 
make  love  to  her.  Her  Aunt  Ella  made  it  perfectly 
plain  to  Jean  that  she,  for  one,  did  not  consider  it  re- 
spectable. Her  Aunt  Ella  said  that  Carl  was  going  to 
do  something  about  it,  if  things  weren't  changed  pretty 
quick. 

Jean  did  not  appear  to  regard  her  aunt's  disapproval 
as  of  any  importance  whatever,  but  the  words  stung. 
She  had  herself  worried  a  little  over  the  love-making 
scenes  which  she  knew  she  would  now  be  called  upon 
to  play.  Jean,  you  will  have  observed,  was  not  given 
to  sentimental  adventurings ;  and  she  disliked  the  idea 


198      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

of  letting  Lee  Milligan  make  love  to  her  the  way  he 
had  made  love  to  Muriel  Gay  through  picture  after 
picture.  She  would  do  it,  she  supposed,  if  she  had  to ; 
she  wanted  the  salary.  But  she  would  hate  it  intol- 
erably. She  made  reply  with  sarcasm  which  she  knew 
would  particularly  irritate  her  Aunt  Ella,  and  left  the 
house  feeling  that  she  never  wanted  to  enter  it  again  as 
long  as  she  lived. 

The  sight  of  her  uncle  standing  beside  Pard  in  an 
attitude  of  disgusted  appraisement  of  the  new  l^avajo 
blanket  and  the  silver-trimmed  bridle  and  tapideros 
which  Burns  had  persuaded  her  to  add  to  her  riding 
outfit, —  for  photographic  effect, —  brought  a  hot  flush 
of  resentment.  She  went  up  quietly  enough,  however. 
Indeed,  she  went  up  so  quietly  that  he  started  when 
she  appeared  almost  beside  him  and  picked  up  Pard's 
reins,  and  took  the  stirrup  to  mount  and  ride  away. 
She  did  not  speak  to  him  at  all ;  she  had  not  spoken  to 
him  since  that  night  when  the  little  brown  bird  had 
died !  Though  perhaps  that  was  because  she  had  man- 
aged to  keep  out  of  his  way. 

"  I  see  you've  been  staking  yourself  to  a  new  bridle," 
Carl  began  in  a  tone  quite  as  sour  as  his  look.  "  You 
must  have  bought  out  all  the  tin  decorations  they  had  in 
stock,  didn't  you  ?  " 

Jean  swung  up  into  the  saddle  before  she  looked  at 


A   LEADING   LADY  199 

him.  "  If  I  did,  it's  my  own  affair,"  she  retorted.  "  I 
paid  for  the  tin  decorations  with  my  own  money." 

"  Oh,  you  did !  Well,  you  might  have  been  in  bet- 
ter business  than  paying  for  that  kind  of  thing.  You 
might,"  he  sneered  up  at  her,  "  have  been  paying  for 
your  keep  these  last  three  years,  if  you've  got  more 
money  of  your  own  than  you  know  what  to  do  with." 

Jean  could  not  ride  off  under  the  sting  of  that 
gratuitous  insult.  She  held  Pard  quiet  and  looked 
down  at  him  with  hate  in  her  eyes.  "  I  expect,"  she 
said  in  a  queer,  quiet  wrath,  "  to  prove  before  long  that 
my  own  money  has  been  paying  for  my  '  keep  '  these 
last  three  years ;  for  that  and  for  other  things  that  did 
not  benefit  me  in  the  least." 

"  I'd  like  to  know  what  you  mean  by  that !  "  Carl 
caught  Pard  by  the  bridle-rein  and  looked  up  at  her  in  a 
white  fury  that  startled  even  Jean,  accustomed  as  she 
was  to  his  sudden  rages  that  contrasted  with  his  sullen 
attitude  toward  the  world. 

"  What  do  you  think  I  would  mean  ?  Let  go  my 
bridle.     I  don't  want  to  quarrel  with  you." 

"  What  did  you  mean  by  proving  —  what  do  you 
expect  to  prove  ? "  His  hand  was  heavy  on  the  rein, 
so  that  Pard  began  to  fret  under  the  restraint.  "  You've 
got  to  quit  running  around  all  over  the  country  with 
them  show  folks,  and  stay  at  home  and  behave  yourself. 


200      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

You've  got  to  quit  hanging  out  at  the  Lazy  A.  I've 
stood  as  much  as  I'm  going  to  stand  of  your  perform- 
ances. You  get  down  off  that  horse  and  go  into  the 
house  and  behave  yourself;  that's  what  you'll  do!  If 
you  haven't  got  any  shame  or  decency  — " 

Jean  scarcely  knew  what  she  did,  just  then.  She 
must  have  dug  Pard  with  her  spurs,  because  the  first 
thing  that  she  realized  was  the  lunge  he  gave.  Carl's 
hold  slipped  from  the  rein,  as  he  was  jerked  sidewise. 
He  made  an  ineffective  grab  at  Jean's  skirt,  and  he 
called  her  a  name  she  had  never  heard  spoken  before  in 
her  life.  A  rod  or  so  away  she  pulled  up  and  turned 
to  face  him,  but  the  words  she  would  have  spoken  stuck 
in  her  throat.  She  had  never  seen  Carl  Douglas  look 
like  that;  she  had  seen  him  when  he  was  furious,  she 
had  seen  him  when  he  sulked,  but  she  had  never  seen 
him  look  like  that. 

He  called  her  to  come  back.  He  made  threats  of 
what  he  would  do  if  she  refused  to  obey  him.  He  shook 
his  fist  at  her.  He  behaved  like  a  man  temporarily 
robbed  of  his  reason ;  his  eyes,  as  he  came  up  glaring  at 
her,  were  the  eyes  of  a  madman. 

Jean  felt  a  tremor  of  dread  while  she  looked  at  him 
and  listened  to  him.  He  was  almost  within  reach  of 
her  again  when  she  wheeled  and  went  off  up  the  trail  at 
a  run.     She  looked  back  often,  half  fearing  that  he 


A   LEADING   LADY  201 

would  get  a  horse  and  follow  her,  but  he  stood  just 
where  she  had  left  him,  and  he  seemed  to  be  still  utter- 
ing threats  and  groundless  accusations  as  long  as  she 
was  in  sight. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

rOE   ONCE  AT    LEAST    LITE    HAD   HIS    WAY 

HALF  a  mile  she  galloped,  and  met  Lite  coming 
home.  She  glanced  over  her  shoulder  before  she 
pulled  Pard  down  to  a  walk,  and  Lite's  greeting,  as  he 
turned  and  rode  alongside  her,  was  a  question.  He 
wanted  to  know  what  was  the  matter  with  her.  He 
listened  with  his  old  manner  of  repression  while  she 
told  him,  and  he  made  no  comment  whatever  until  she 
had  finished. 

"  You  must  have  made  him  pretty  sore,''  he  said  dis- 
passionately. "  I  don't  think  myself  that  you  ought 
to  stay  over  to  the  ranch  alone.  Why  don't  you  do  as 
he  says  ? " 

"  And  go  back  to  the  Bar  Nothing  ? ''  Lean  shivered 
a  little.  "  ISTothing  could  make  me  go  back  there  I 
Lite,  you  don't  understand.  He  acted  like  a  crazy  man ; 
and  I  hadn't  said  anything  to  stir  him  up  like  that. 
He  was  —  Lite,  he  scared  me !  I  couldn't  stay  on  the 
ranch  with  him.  I  couldn't  be  in  the  same  room  with 
him." 


FOR    ONCE    AT    LEAST        203 

"  You  can't  go  on  staying  at  the  Lazy  A/'  Lite  told 
her  flatly. 

"  There's  no  other  place  where  I'd  stay." 

"  You  could,"  Lite  pointed  out,  "  stay  in  town  and 
go  back  and  forth  with  the  rest  of  the  bunch.  It  would 
be  a  lot  better,  any  way  you  look  at  it." 

"  It  would  be  a  lot  worse.  There's  my  book ;  I 
wouldn't  have  any  chance  to  write  on  that.  And 
there's  the  expense.  I'm  saving  every  nickel  I  possi- 
bly can,  Lite,  and  you  know  what  for.  And  there's  the 
bunch  —  I  see  enough  of  them  during  working  hours. 
I'd  go  crazy  if  I  had  to  live  with  them.  Lite,  they've 
put  me  in  playing  leads !  I'm  to  get  a  hundred  dollars 
a  week!  Just  think  of  that!  And  Burns  says  that 
I'll  have  to  go  back  to  Los  Angeles  with  them  when  they 
go  this  fall,  because  the  contract  I  signed  lasts  for  a 
year." 

She  sighed.  ^^  I  rode  over  to  tell  you  about  it.  It 
seemed  to  be  good  news,  when  I  left  home.  But  now, 
it's  just  a  part  of  the  black  tangle  that  life's  made  up 
of.  Aunt  Ella  started  things  off  by  telling  me  what 
a  disgrace  it  is  for  me  to  work  in  these  pictures.  And 
Uncle  Carl  — "  She  shivered  in  spite  of  herself.  "  I 
just  can't  understand  Uncle  Carl's  going  into  such  a 
rage.     It  was  —  awful." 

Lite  rode  for  some  distance  before  he  lifted  his  head 


204      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

or  spoke.  Then  he  looked  at  Jean,  who  was  Staring 
straight  ahead  and  seeing  nothing  save  what  her  thorghts 
pictured. 

He  did  not  say  a  word  about  her  going  to  Los  An- 
geles. 

He  was  the  bottled-up  type;  the  things  that  hit  him 
hardest  he  seldom  mentioned,  so  by  that  rule  it  might 
be  inferred  that  her  going  hit  hard.  But  his  voice  was 
normally  calm,  and  his  tone  was  the  tone  of  authority, 
which  Jean  knew  very  well,  and  which  nearly  always 
amused  her  because  she  firmly  believed  it  to  be  utterly 
useless. 

He  said  in  the  tone  of  an  ultimatum :  "If  you're 
bound  to  stay  at  the  ranch,  you've  got  to  have  somebody 
with  you.  I'll  ride  in  and  get  Hepsy  Atwood  in  the 
morning.  You're  getting  thin.  I  don't  believe  you 
take  time  to  cook  enough  to  eat.  You  can't  work  on 
soda  crackers  and  sardines.  The  old  lady  won't  charge 
much  to  come  and  stay  with  you.  I'll  come  over  after 
I'm  through  work  to-morrow  and  help  her  get  things 
looking  a  little  more  like  living." 

"  You'll  do  nothing  of  the  sort."  Jean  looked  at 
him  mutinously.  "  I'm  all  right  just  as  I  am.  I 
won't  have  her,  Lite.     That's  settled." 

"  Sure,  it's  settled,"  Lite  agreed,  with  more  than  his 
usual  pertinacity.     "I'll  have  her  out  here  by  noon. 


FOR    ONCE    AT    LEAST        205 

and  a  supply  of  real  grub.  How  are  you  fixed  for  bed- 
ding ?  " 

"  I  won't  have  her,  I  tell  you.  You're  always  try- 
ing to  make  me  do  things  I  won't  do.  Don't  be 
silly." 

"  Sure  not."  Lite  shifted  in  the  saddle  with  the  air 
of  a  man  who  rides  at  perfect  ease  with  himself  and 
with  the  world.  *^  She'll  likely  have  plenty  of  bedding 
of  her  own,"  he  meditated,  after  a  brief  silence. 

"  Lite,  if  you  haul  Hepsibah  out  here,  I'll  send  her 
back!" 

"  I'll  haul  her  out,"  said  Lite  in  a  tone  of  finality, 
"  but  you  won't  send  her  back."  He  paused.  "  She 
ain't  much  protection,  maj^be,"  he  remarked  somewhat 
enigmatically,  "  but  it'll  beat  staying  alone  nights. 
You  —  you  can't  tell  who  might  come  prowling  around 
the  place." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  Do  you  know  about  — " 
Jean  caught  herself  on  the  verge  of  betrayal. 

"  You  want  to  keep  your  gun  handy.  Just  on  gen- 
eral principles,"  Lite  remonstrated.  "  You  can't  tell ; 
it's  away  off  from  everywhere." 

"  I  won't  have  Hepsy  Atwood.  Haven't  I  enough  to 
drive  me  mad,  without  her  ?  " 

"  Is  there  anybody  else  that  you'd  rather  have  ? " 
Lite  looked  at  her  speculatively. 


206      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

"  No,  there  isn't.  I  won't  have  anybody.  It  would 
be  a  nuisance  having  some  old  lady  in  the  house  gab- 
bling and  gossiping.  I'm  not  the  least  bit  afraid,  ex- 
cept,—  I'm  not  afraid,  and  I  like  to  be  alone.  I  won't 
have  her,  Lite." 

Lite  said  no  more  about  it  until  they  reached  the 
house,  huddled  lonesomely  against  the  barren  bluff,  its 
windows  staring  black  into  the  dusk.  Jean  did  not 
seem  to  expect  Lite  to  dismount,  but  he  did  not  wait  to 
see  what  she  expected  him  to  do.  In  his  most  matter- 
of-fact  manner  he  dismounted  and  turned  his  horse, 
still  saddled,  into  the  stable  with  Pard.  He  preceded 
Jean  up  the  path,  and  went  into  the  kitchen  ahead  of 
her;  lighted  a  match  and  found  the  lamp,  and  set  its 
flame  to  brightening  the  dingy  room. 

Jean  had  not  done  much  in  the  way  of  making  that 
part  of  the  house  more  attractive.  She  used  the 
kitchen  to  cook  in,  because  the  stove  was  there,  and  the 
dishes.  She  had  spread  an  old  braided  rug  over  the 
brown  stain  on  the  floor,  and  she  ate  in  her  own  room 
with  the  door  shut. 

Without  being  told,  Lite  seemed  to  know  all  about  her 
secret  aversion  to  the  kitchen.  He  took  up  the  lamp 
and  went  now  on  a  tour  of  inspection  through  the  house. 
Jean  followed  him,  wondering  a  little,  and  thinking 
that  this  was  the  way  that  mysterious  stranger  came 


FOR    ONCE    AT    LEAST        207 

and  prowled  at  night,  except  that  he  must  have  used 
matches  to  light  the  way,  or  a  candle,  since  the  lamp 
seemed  never  to  be  disturbed.  Lite  went  into  all  the 
rooms  and  held  the  lamp  so  that  its  brightness  searched 
out  all  the  corners.  He  looked  into  the  small,  stuffy 
closets.  He  stood  in  the  middle  of  her  father's  room 
and  seemed  to  meditate  deeply,  while  Jean  stood  in  the 
doorway  and  watchod  him  inquiringly.  He  came  back 
finally  to  the  kitchen  and  looked  into  the  cupboard,  as 
though  he  was  taking  an  inventory  of  her  supply  of  pro- 


visions. 


You  might  cook  me  some  supper,  Jean,"  he  said, 
when  he  had  put  the  lamp  on  the  table.  "  I  see  you've 
got  eggs  and  bacon.  I'm  pretty  hungry, —  for  a  man 
that  had  his  dinner  six  or  seven  hours  ago." 

Jean  cooked  supper,  and  they  ate  together  in  the 
kitchen.  It  did  not  seem  so  gruesome  with  Lite  there, 
and  she  told  him  some  funny  things  that  had  happened 
in  her  work,  and  mimicked  Eobert  Grant  Burns  with 
an  accuracy  of  manner  and  tone  that  would  have  aston- 
ished that  pompous  person  a  good  deal  and  flattered  him 
not  at  all.  She  almost  recovered  her  spirits  under  the 
stimulus  of  Lite's  presence,  and  she  quite  forgot  that  he 
had  threatened  her  with  Hepsibah  Atwood. 

But  when  he  had  wiped  the  dishes  and  had  taken  up 
his  hat  to  go,  Lite  proved  how  tenaciously  his  mind 


208      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY    A 

could  hold  to  an  idea,  and  how  even  Jean  could  not 
quite  match  him  for  stubbornness. 

"  That  mattress  in  the  little  bedroom  looks  all  right," 
he  said.  "  I'll  pack  it  outside  before  I  go,  so  it  will 
have  all  day  to-morrow  out  in  the  sun.  I'll  have  Hepsy 
bring  her  own  bedding.     Well  —  so  long." 

Jean  would  have  sworn  in  perfect  good  faith  that 
Lite  led  his  horse  out  of  the  stable,  mounted  it,  and 
rode  away  to  the  Bar  Nothing.  He  did  mount  and  ride 
away  as  far  as  the  mouth  of  the  coulee.  But  that  night 
he  spent  in  the  loft  over  the  shop,  and  he  did  not  sleep 
five  minutes  during  the  night.  Most  of  the  time  he 
spent  leaning  against  his  rolled  bedding,  smoking  and 
gazing  at  the  silent  house  where  Jean  slept.  You  may 
interpret  that  as  you  will. 

Jean  did  not  see  or  hear  anything  more  of  him,  until 
about  four  o'clock  the  next  afternoon,  when  he  drove 
calmly  up  to  the  house  and  deposited  Ilepsibah  Atwood 
upon  the  kitchen  steps.  He  did  not  wait  for  Jean  to 
order  them  away.  He  hurried  the  unloading,  released 
the  wagon  brake,  and  drove  off.  So  Jean,  coming  from 
the  spring  behind  the  house,  really  got  her  first  sight 
of  him  as  he  went  rattling  down  to  the  gate. 

Jean  stood  and  looked  after  him,  twitched  her  shoul- 
ders in  a  mental  yielding  of  the  point  for  the  time  being, 
and  said  "  How-da-do  "  to  the  old  lady. 


FOR   ONCE    AT    LEAST        209 

She  was  not  so  old,  as  years  go;  fifty-five  or  there- 
abouts. And  she  could  have  whispered  into  Lite's  ear 
without  standing  on  her  toes  or  asking  him  to  bend  his 
head.  Lite  was  a  tall  man,  at  that.  She  had  gray 
hair  that  was  frizzy  around  her  brows  and  at  the  back 
of  her  neck,  and  she  had  an  Irish  disposition  without 
the  brogue  to  go  with  it. 

The  first  thing  she  did  was  to  find  an  axe  and  chop  a 
lot  of  fence-posts  into  firewood,  as  easily  as  Lite  him- 
self could  have  done  it,  and  in  other  ways  proceeded  to 
make  herself  very  much  at  home.  The  next  day  she 
dipped  the  spring  almost  dry,  and  used  up  all  the  soap 
in  the  house ;  and  for  three  days  went  around  with  her 
skirts  tucked  up  and  her  arms  bare  and  the  soles  of  her 
shoes  soggy  from  wet  floors.  Jean  kept  out  of  her  way, 
but  she  owned  to  herself  that,  after  all,  it  was  not  un- 
pleasant to  come  home  tired  and  not  have  to  cook  a 
solitary  supper  and  eat  it  in  silent  meditation. 

The  third  night  after  Ilepsy's  arrival,  Jean  awoke  to 
hear  a  man's  furtive  footsteps  in  her  father's  room. 
This  was  the  fifth  time  that  the  prow^ler  had  come  in 
the  night,  and  custom  had  dulled  her  fear  a  little.  She 
had  not  reached  the  point  yet  of  getting  up  to  see  who 
it  was  and  what  he  wanted.  It  was  much  easier  to  lie 
perfectly  still  with  her  six-shooter  gripped  in  her  hand 
and  wait  for  him  to  go.     Beyond  stealthily  trying  her 


210      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

door  and  finding  it  fastened  on  the  inside,  he  had  never 
shown  any  disposition  to  invade  her  room. 

To-night  was  as  all  other  nights  when  he  came  and 
made  that  mysterious  search,  until  he  went  into  the  lit- 
tle bedroom  where  slept  Hepsibah  Atwood.  Jean  lis- 
tened to  the  faint  creaking  of  old  boards  which  told  her 
that  he  was  approaching  Hepsy's  room,  and  she  won- 
dered if  Hepsy  would  hear  him.  Ilepsy  did  hear  him. 
There  was  a  squeak  of  the  old  bedstead  that  told  how 
a  hundred  and  seventy-two  pounds  of  indignant  woman- 
hood was  rising  to  do  battle. 

"  Who's  that  ?  Git  outa  here,  or  I'll  smash  you !  " 
There  was  no  fear  but  a  great  deal  of  determination  in 
Hepsy' s  voice,  and  there  was  the  sound  of  her  bare  feet 
spatting  on  the  floor. 

The  man's  footsteps  retreated  hurriedly.  Jean 
heard  the  kitchen  door  open  and  slam  shut  with  a 
shrill  squeal  of  its  rusty  hinges,  and  the  sound  of  a  man 
running  down  the  path.  She  heard  Hepsy  muttering 
threats  while  she  followed  to  the  door  and  looked  out, 
and  she  heard  the  muttering  continue  while  Hepsy  re- 
turned to  bed. 

It  was  very  comforting.  Jean  tucked  her  gun  under 
her  pillow,  laughed  to  herself  for  having  shuddered  un- 
der the  blankets  at  the  sound  of  a  man  so  easily  put  to 
flight,  and  went  to  sleep  feeling  quite  secure  and  for  the 


FOR   ONCE   AT   LEAST       211 

first  time  really  glad  that  Hepsibah  Atwood  was  in  the 
house. 

She  listened  the  next  morning  to  Hepsy's  colorful 
account  of  the  affair,  but  she  did  not  tell  Hepsy  that  the 
man  had  been  there  before.  She  did  not  even  tell  her 
that  she  had  heard  the  disturbance,  and  was  lying  with 
her  gun  in  her  hand  ready  to  shoot  if  he  came  into  her 
room.  For  a  girl  as  frank  and  outspoken  as  was  Jean, 
she  had  almost  as  great  a  talent  as  Lite  for  holding  her 
tongue. 


CHAPTEE  XVII 

"  WHY  don't  you  give  THEM  SOMETHING  KEAL  ?  " 

'  ''^  71  TELL,  you  don't  seem  crazy  about  it.  What's 
V  ¥  the  matter  ?  "  Eobert  Grant  Bums  stood  in 
his  favorite  attitude  with  his  hands  on  his  hips  and 
his  feet  far  apart,  and  looked  down  at  Jean  with  a  secret 
anxiety  in  his  eyes.  Without  realizing  it  in  the  least, 
Jean's  opinion  had  come  to  have  a  certain  weight  with 
Robert  Grant  Burns.  "  What's  wrong  with  that  ?  " 
Burns,  having  sat  up  until  two  o'clock  to  finish  that  par- 
ticular scenario  to  his  liking,  plainly  resented  the  ex- 
pression on  Jean's  face  while  she  read  it. 

"  Oh,  nothing,  only  I'm  getting  awfully  sick  of  these 
kidnap-and-rescue,  and  kiss-in-the-last-scene  pictures, 
and  Wild  West  stuff  without  a  real  Western  man  in  the 
whole  thing.  I'd  like  to  do  something  real  for  a 
change." 

Robert  Grant  Burns  grunted  and  reached  for  his 
slighted  brain-child.  "  What  you  want  ?  Mother  on, 
knitting.  Girl  washing  dishes.  Lover  arrives ;  they  sit 
on  front  steps   and  spoon.     Become  engaged.     Lover 


SOMETHING   REAL  213 

hitches  up  team,  girl  climbs  into  wagon,  they  drive  to 
town.  Ten  scenes  of  driving  to  town.  Lover  gets  out, 
ties  team  in  front  of  courthouse.  Goes  in  and  gets 
license.  Three  scenes  of  license  business.  Goes  out. 
Two  scenes  of  driving  to  minister  and  hitching  team 
to  gate.  One  scene  of  getting  to  door.  One  scene  get- 
ting inside  the  house.  One  scene  preacher  calling  his 
wife  and  hired  girl.  One  scene  '  Do  you  take  this 
woman/  one  scene  ^  I  do.'  Fifteen  scenes  getting  team 
untied  and  driving  back  to  ranch.  That's  about  as 
much  pep  as  there  is  in  real  life  in  the  far  West,  these 
days.  Something  like  that  w^ould  suit  you,  maybe.  It 
don't  suit  the  people  who  pay  good  nickels  and  dimes  to 
get  a  thrill,  though." 

"  Neither  does  this  sort  of  junk,  if  they've  got  any 
sense.  Think  of  paying  nickel  after  nickel  to  see  Lee 
Milligan  rush  to  the  girl's  door,  knock,  learn  the  fatal 
news,  stagger  back  and  clap  his  hand  to  his  brow  and 
say  ^  Great  Heaven !  Gone  I '  "  Jean,  stirred  to  com- 
bat by  the  sarcasm  of  Robert  Grant  Burns,  did  the  stag- 
ger and  the  hand-to-brow  and  great-heaven  scene  with  a 
realism  that  made  Pete  Lowry  turn  his  back  suddenly. 
"  They've  seen  Gil  abduct  me  or  Muriel  seven  times  in  a 
perfectly  impossible  manner,  and  they  —  oh,  why  don't 
you  give  them  something  real^  Things  that  are  thrill- 
ing and  dangerous  and  terrible  do  happen  out  hereX 


214      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

Mr.   Burns.     Eeal  adventures  and  real  tragedies  — " 

She  stopped,  and  Bums  turned  his  eyes  involuntarily 
toward  the  kitchen.  He  had  heard  all  about  the  history 
of  the  Lazy  A,  though  he  had  been  very  careful  to  hide 
the  fact  that  he  had  heard  it.  Jean's  glance,  following 
that  of  her  director,  was  a  revealing  one.  She  bit  her 
lip ;  and  in  a  moment  she  went  on,  with  her  chin  held 
a  shade  higher  and  her  pride  revolting  against  subter- 
fuge. 

"  I  didn't  mean  that,"  she  said  quietly.  "  But  — 
well,  up  to  a  certain  point,  I  don't  mind  if  you  put  in 
real  things,  if  it  will  be  good  picture-stuff.  You're  fea- 
turing me,  anyway,  it  seems.  Listen."  Jean's  face 
changed.  Her  eyes  took  that  farseeing  look  of  the 
dreamer.  She  was  looking  full  at  Burns,  but  he  knew 
that  she  did  not  see  him  at  all.  She  was  looking  at  a 
mental  picture  of  her  own  conjuring,  he  judged.  He 
stood  still  and  waited  curiously,  wondering,  to  use  his 
manner  of  speech,  what  the  girl  was  going  to  spring 
now. 

"  Listen :  Instead  of  all  this  impossible  piffle,  let's 
start  a  real  story.     I  —  I've  — " 

"  What  kind  of  a  real  story  ?  "  The  tone  of  Eobert 
Grant  Burns  was  carefully  non-committal,  but  his  eyes 
betrayed  his  eagerness.  The  girl  did  have  some  real 
ideas,  sometimes!     And  Eobert  Grant  Burns  was  not 


SOMETHING   REAL  215 

the  one  to  refuse  a  real  idea  because  it  did  not  come  from 
his  own  brain. 

"Well,"  Jean  flushed  with  an  adorable  shyness  at 
the  apparent  egotism  of  her  idea,  "  since  you  seem  to 
want  me  for  the  central  figure  in  everything,  suppose 
we  start  a  story  like  this:  Suppose  I  am  left  here  at 
the  Lazy  A  with  my  mother  to  take  care  of  and  a  ranch 
and  a  lot  of  cattle ;  and  suppose  it's  a  hard  proposition, 
because  there's  really  a  gang  of  rustlers  that  have  been 
running  off  stock  and  never  getting  caught,  and  they 
have  a  grudge  against  my  family  and  grab  our  cattle 
every  chance  they  get.  Suppose  —  suppose  they  killed 
my  brother  when  he  was  about  to  round  them  up,  and 
they  want  to  drive  me  and  my  mother  out  of  the  coun- 
try. Scare  us  out,  you  know.  Well, — "  she  hesitated 
and  glanced  diffidently  at  the  boys  who  had  edged  up  to 
listen, — "  that  would  leave  room  for  all  kinds  of  fea- 
ture stuff.  Say  that  I  have  just  one  or  two  boys  that  I 
can  depend  on,  boys  that  I  know  are  loyal.  With  an 
outfit  the  size  of  ours,  that  keeps  me  in  the  saddle  every 
day  and  all  day;  and  I  would  have  some  narrow  es- 
capes, I  reckon.  You've  got  your  rustlers  all  made  to 
order, —  onl}^  I'd  make  them  up  differently,  if  I  were 
doing  it.  Have  them  look  real,  you  know,  instead  of 
stagey."     (Whereat    Robert    Grant    Burns    winced.) 

Lee  could  be  one  of  my  loyal  cowboys;  you'd  want 


iC 


216      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

some  dramatic  acting,  I  reckon,  and  he  could  do  that. 
But  I'd  want  one  puncher  who  can  ride  and  shoot  and 
handle  a  rope.  For  that,  to  help  me  do  the  real  work 
in  the  picture,  I  want  Lite  Avery.  There  are  things 
I  can  do  that  you  have  never  had  me  do,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  you  don't  know  the  life  well  enough  ever 
to  think  of  them.  Eeal  stunts,  not  these  made-to-order, 
shoot-the-villain-and-run-to-the-arms-of-the-hero  stuff. 
I'd  have  to  have  Lite  Avery;  I  wouldn't  start  without 
him." 

"  Well,  go  on."  Robert  Grant  Burns  still  tried  to 
sound  non-committal,  but  he  was  plainly  eager  to  hear 
all  that  she  had  to  say. 

"Well,  that's  the  idea.  They're  trying  to  drive  us 
out  of  the  country,  without  really  hurting  me.  And 
I've  got  my  mind  set  on  staying.  !N^ot  only  that,  but 
I  believe  they  killed  my  brother,  and  I'm  going  to  hunt 
them  down  and  break  up  their  gang  or  die  in  the  at- 
tempt. There's  your  plot.  It  needn't  be  overdone  in 
the  least,  to  have  thrills  enough.  And  there  would  be 
all  kinds  of  chance  for  real  range-stuff,  like  the  handling 
of  cattle  and  all  that. 

"  We  can  use  this  ranch  just  as  it  is,  and  have  the 
outlaws  down  next  the  river.  I'm  glad  you  haven't 
taken  an}^  scenes  that  show  the  ranch  as  a  whole. 
You've  stuck  to  your  close-up,  great-heaven  scenes  so 


SOMETHING   REAL  217 

miicli/'  she  went  on  with  merciless  frankness,  "  that 
you've  really  not  cheapened  the  place  by  showing  more 
than  a  little  bit  at  a  time. 

"  You  might  start  by  making  Lee  up  for  my  brother, 
and  kill  him  in  the  first  reel;  show  the  outlaws  when 
they  shoot  him  and  run  off  with  a  bunch  of  stock  they're 
after.  Lite  can  find  him  and  bring  him  home.  Lite 
would  know  just  how  to  do  that  sort  of  thing,  and  make 
people  see  it's  real  stuff.  I  believe  he'd  show  he  was 
a  real  cow-puncher,  even  to  the  people  who  never  saw 
one.  There's  an  awful  lot  of  difference  between  the 
real  thing  and  your  actors."  She  was  so  perfectly  sin- 
cere and  so  matter-of-fact  that  the  men  she  criticised 
could  do  no  more  than  grin. 

"  You  might,  for  the  sake  of  complications,  put  a 
traitor  and  spy  on  the  ranch.  Oh,  I  tell  you!  Have 
HexDsibah  be  the  mother  of  one  of  the  outlaws.  She 
wouldn't  need  to  do  any  acting;  you  could  show  her 
sneaking  out  in  the  dark  to  meet  her  son  and  tell  hina 
Yv'hat  she  has  overheard.  And  show  her  listening,  per- 
haps, through  the  crack  in  a  door.  Mrs.  Gay  would 
have  to  be  the  mother.  Gil  says  that  Llepsibah  has  the 
figure  of  a  comedy  cook  and  what  he  calls  a  character 
face.  I  believe  we  could  manage  her  all  right,  for  what 
little  she  would  have  to  do,  don't  you  ?  " 

Jean  having  poured  out  her  inspiration  with  a  flu- 


218      JEAN   OF    THE    LAZY   A 

ency  born  of  her  first  enthusiasm,  began  to  feel  that  she 
had  been  somewhat  presumptuous  in  thus  offering  ad- 
vice wholesale  to  the  highest  paid  director  of  the  Great 
Western  Film  Company.  She  blushed  and  laughed  a 
little,  and  shrugged  her  shoulders. 

''  That's  just  a  suggestion,''  she  said  with  forced  light- 
ness. "  I'm  subject  to  attacks  of  acute  imagination, 
sometimes.  Don't  mind  me,  Mr.  Burns.  Your 
scenario  is  a  very  nice  scenario,  I'm  sure.  Do  you  want 
me  to  be  a  braid-down-the-back  girl  in  this?  Or  a 
curls-around-the-f  ace  girl  ?  " 

Robert  Grant  Burns  stood  absent-mindedly  tapping 
his  left  palm  wdth  the  folded  scenario  which  Jean  had 
just  damned  by  calling  it  a  very  nice  scenario.  ISTice 
was  not  the  adjective  one  would  apply  to  it  in  sincere 
admiration.  Robert  Grant  Burns  himself  had  mentally 
called  it  a  hummer.  He  did  not  reply  to  Jean's  tenta- 
tive apology  for  her  own  plot-idea.  ^  He  was  thinking 
about  the  idea  itself. 

Robert  Grant  Burns  was  not  what  one  would  call 
petty.  He  would  not,  for  instance,  stick  to  his  own 
story  if  he  considered  that  Jean's  was  a  better  one. 
And,  after  all,  Jean  was  now  his  leading  woman,  and 
it  is  not  unusual  for  a  leading  woman  to  manufacture 
her  own  plots,  especially  when  she  is  being  featured 
by  her  company.     There  was  no  question  of  hurt  pride 


SOMETHING   REAL  219 

to  be  debated  within  the  mind  of  him,  therefore.     He 
was  just  weighing  the  idea  itself  for  what  it  was  worth. 

"  Seems  to  me  your  plot-idea  isn't  so  much  tamer 
than  mine,  after  all.''  He  tested  her  shrewdly  after 
a  prolonged  pause.  "  You've  got  a  killing  in  the  first 
^ve  hundred  feet,  and  outlaws  and  rustling  — " 

"  Oh,  but  don't  you  see,  it  isn't  the  skeleton  that 
makes  the  difference;  it's  the  kind  of  meat  you  put  on 
the  bones!  Paradise  Lost  would  be  a  howling  melo- 
drama, if  some  of  you  picture-people  tried  to  make  it. 
You'd  take  this  plot  of  mine  and  make  it  just  like  these 
pictures  I've  been  working  in,  Mr.  Burns:  Exciting 
and  all  that,  but  not  the  real  West  after  all;  spectacu- 
lar without  being  probable.  What  I  mean, —  I  can't 
explain  it  to  you,  I'm  afraid ;  but  I  have  it  in  my  head." 
She  looked  at  him  with  that  lightening  of  the  eyes  which 
was  not  a  smile,  really,  but  rather  the  amusement  which 
might  grow  into  laughter  later  on. 

"  You'd  better  fine  me  for  insubordination,"  she 
drawled  whimsically,  "  and  tell  me  whether  it's  to  be 
braids  or  curls,  so  I  can  go  and  make  up."  At  that  mo- 
ment she  saw  Gil  Huntley  beckoning  to  her  with  a  fran- 
tic kind  of  furtiveness  that  was  a  fair  mixture  of 
pinched-together  eyebrows  and  slight  jerkings  of  the 
head,  and  a  guarded  movement  of  his  hand  that  hung 
at  his  side.     Gil^  she  thought,  was  trying  to  draw  her 


220      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY    A 

away  before  she  went  too  far  with  her  trouble-inviting 
freedom  of  speech.     She  laughed  lazily. 

"  Braids  or  curls  ?  "  she  insisted.  "  And  please,  sir, 
J  won't  do  so  no  more,  honest." 

Robert  Grant  Burns  looked  at  her  from  under  his  eye- 
brows and  made  a  sound  between  his  grunt  of  indigna- 
tion and  his  chuckle  of  amusement.  "  Sure  you 
won't  ? "  he  queried  shortly.  "  Stay  the  way  you  are, 
if  you  want  to ;  chances  are  you  won't  go  to  work  right 
away,  anyhow." 

Jean  flashed  him  a  glance  of  inquiry.  Did  that  mean 
that  she  had  at  last  gone  beyond  the  limit  ?  Was  Rob- 
ert Grant  Burns  going  to  fire  her?  She  looked  at  Gil, 
who  was  sauntering  off  with  the  perfectly  apparent  ex- 
pectation that  she  would  follow  him;  and  Mrs.  Gay, 
who  was  regarding  her  with  a  certain  melancholy  con- 
viction that  Jean's  time  as  leading  woman  was  short 
indeed.  She  pursed  her  lips  with  a  rueful  resignation, 
and  followed  Gil  to  the  spring  behind  the  house. 

"  Say,  you  mustn't  hand  out  things  like  that,  Jean !  " 
he  protested,  when  they  were  quite  out  of  sight  and 
hearing  of  the  others.  '^  Let  me  give  you  a  tip,  girl. 
If  you've  got  any  photo-play  ideas  that  are  worth  talking 
about,  don't  go  spreading  them  out  like  that  for  Bobby 
to  pick  and  choose !  " 

"  Pick     to     pieces,     you     mean,"     Jean     corrected. 


SOMETHING   REAL  221 

"  You're  going  to  tell  me  I'm  ^  in  bad.'  But  I  can't 
help  it ;  he's  putting  on  some  awfully  stagey  plots,  and 
they  cost  just  as  much  to  produce  as  — " 

"  Listen  here.  You've  got  me  wrong.  That  plot  of 
yours  could  be  worked  up  into  a  dandy  series;  the  idea 
of  a  story  running  through  a  lot  of  pictures  is  great. 
What  I  mean  is,  it's  worth  something.  You  don't  have 
to  give  stufT  like  that  away,  make  him  a  present  of  it, 
you  know.  I  just  want  to  put  you  wise.  If  you've  got 
anything  that's  worth  using,  make  'em  pay  for  it.  Put 
'er  into  scenario  form  and  sell  it  to  'em.  You're  in  this 
game  to  make  money,  so  why  overlook  a  bet  like  that  ?  " 

"Oh,  Gil!     Could  I?" 

"  Sure,  you  could !  ISTo  reason  why  you  shouldn't, 
if  you  can  deliver  the  goods.  Burns  has  been  writing 
his  own  plays  to  fit  his  company;  but  aside  from  the 
features  you've  been  putting  into  it,  it's  old  stuff.  He's 
a  darned  good  director,  and  all  that,  but  he  hasn't  got 
the  knack  of  building  real  stories.  You  see  wliat  I 
mean.     If  you  have,  why  — " 

"  I  wonder,"  said  Jean  with  a  sudden  small  doubt  of 
her  literary  talents,  "  if  I  have !  " 

"  Sure,  you  have !  "  Gil's  faith  in  Jean  was  of  the 
kind  that  scorns  proof.  "  You  see,  you've  got  the  dope 
on  the  West,  and  he  knows  it.  Why,  I've  been  watch- 
ing how  he  takes  the  cue  from  you  right  along  for  his 


222      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

features.  Ever  since  yon  told  Lee  Milligan  how  to  lay 
a  saddle  on  the  ground,  Burns  has  been  getting  tips; 
and  half  the  time  you  didn't  even  know  you  were  giving 
them.  Get  into  this  game  right,  Jean.  Make  'em  pay 
for  that  kind  of  thing." 

Jean  regarded  him  thoughtfully,  tempted  to  yield. 
"  Mrs.  Gay  says  a  hundred  dollars  a  week  — " 

"  It's  good  pay  for  a  beginner.  She's  right,  and  she's 
wrong.  They're  featuring  you  in  stuff  that  nobody  else 
can  do.  Who  would  they  put  in  your  place,  to  do  the 
stunts  you've  been  doing  ?  Muriel  Gay  was  a  good  ac- 
tress, and  as  good  a  Western  lead  as  they  could  pro- 
duce ;  and  you  know  how  she  stacked  up  alongside  you. 
You're  in  a  class  by  yourself,  Jean.  You  want  to  keep 
that  in  mind.  They  aren't  just  trying  to  be  nice  to 
you;  it's  hard-boiled  business  with  the  Great  Western. 
You're  going  awfully  strong  with  the  public.  Why, 
my  chum  writes  me  that  you're  announced  ahead  on  the 
screen  at  one  of  the  best  theaters  on  Broadway !  ^  Com- 
ing: Jean  Douglas  in  So-and-so.'  Do  you  know  what 
that  means?  No,  you  don't;  of  course  not.  But  let 
me  tell  you  that  it  means  a  whole  lot !  I  wish  I'd  had 
a  chance  to  tip  you  off  to  a  little  business  caution  be- 
fore you  signed  that  contract.  That  salary  clause 
should  have  been  doctored  to  make  a  sliding  scale  of  it. 
As  it  is,  you're  stuck  for  a  year  at  a  hundred  dollars  a 


SOMETHING   REAL  223 

week,  unless  you  spring  something  the  contract  does 
not  cover.  Don't  give  away  any  more  dope.  YouVe 
got  an  idea  there,  if  Burns  will  let  you  work  up  to  it. 
Make  'em  pay  for  it." 

"  0-h-h,  Gil !  "  came  the  throaty  call  of  Burns ;  and 
Gil,  with  a  last,  earnest  warning,  left  her  hurriedly. 

Jean  sat  down  on  a  rock  and  meditated,  her  chin  in  her 
palms,  and  her  elbows  on  her  knees.  Vague  shadows 
of  thoughts  clouded  her  mind  and  then  slowly  clarified 
into  definite  ideas.  Unconsciously  she  had  been  grow- 
ing away  from  her  first  formulated  plans.  She  was 
gradually  laying  aside  the  idea  of  reaching  wealth  and 
fame  by  way  of  the  story-trail.  She  was  almost  at  the 
point  of  admitting  to  herself  that  her  story,  as  far  as 
she  had  gone  with  it,  could  never  be  taken  seriously  by 
any  one  with  any  pretense  of  intelligence.  It  was  too 
unreal,  too  fantastic.  It  was  almost  funny,  in  the  most 
tragic  parts.  She  was  ready  now  to  dismiss  the  book  as 
she  had  dismissed  her  earlier  ambitions  to  become  a  poet. 

But  if  she  and  Lite  together  could  really  act  a  story 
that  had  the  stamp  of  realism  which  she  instinctively 
longed  for,  surely  it  would  be  worth  while.  And  if  she 
herself  could  build  the  picture  story  they  would  later 
enact  before  the  camera, —  that  would  be  better,  much 
better  than  writing  silly  things  about  an  impossible 
heroine  in  the  hope  of  later  selling  the  stuff ! 


224      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

Automatically  her  thoughts  swung  over  to  the  actual 
huilding  of  the  scenes  that  would  make  for  continuity 
of  her  lately-conceived  plot.  Because  she  knew  every 
turn  and  every  crook  of  that  coulee  and  every  board  in 
the  buildings  snuggled  within  it,  she  began  to  plan  her 
scenes  to  fit  the  Lazy  A,  and  her  action  to  fit  the  spirit 
of  the  country  and  those  countless  small  details  of  life 
which  go  to  make  what  we  call  the  local  color  of  the 
place. 

There  never  had  been  an  organized  gang  of  outlaws 
just  here  in  this  part  of  the  country,  but  —  there  might 
have  been.  Her  dad  could  remember  when  Kid  Cum- 
mings  and  his  bunch  hung  out  in  the  Bad  Lands  fifty 
miles  to  the  east  of  there.  ]N^either  had  she  ever  had  a 
brother,  for  that  matter;  and  of  her  mother  she  had 
no  more  than  the  indistinct  memory  of  a  time  when 
there  had  been  a  long,  black  box  in  the  middle  of  the 
living-room,  and  a  lot  of  people,  and  tears  which  fell 
upon  her  face  and  tickled  her  nose  when  her  father  held 
her  tightly  in  his  arms. 

But  she  had  the  country,  and  she  had  Lite  Avery,  and 
to  her  it  was  very,  very  easy  to  visualize  a  story  that 
had  no  foundation  in  fact.  It  was  what  she  had  done 
ever  since  she  could  remember  —  the  day-dreaming 
that  had  protected  her  from  the  keen  edge  of  her  loneli- 
ness. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

A   NEW    KIND    OF    PICTURE 

'  '\  "X  THAT  you  doing  now  ?  "     Robert  Grant  Burns 

T    ▼     came  around  the  corner  of  the  house  looking 

for  her,  half  an  hour  later,  and  found  her  sitting  on  the 

doorstep  with  the  old  atlas  on  her  knees  and  her  hat  far 

back  on  her  head,  scribbling  away  for  dear  life. 

Jean  smiled  abstractedly  up  at  him.  "  Why,  I'm  — 
why-y,  I'm  becoming  a  famous  scenario  writer!  Do 
you  want  me  to  go  and  plaster  my  face  with  grease- 
paint, and  become  a  mere  common  leading  lady  again  ?  " 

"  1^0,  I  don't."  Robert  Grant  Burns  chuckled  fatly 
and  held  out  his  hand  with  a  big,  pink  cameo  on  his 
little  finger.  ^'  Let's  see  what  a  famous  scenario  looks 
like.  What  is  it, —  that  plot  you  were  telling  me  awhile 
ago  ? " 

"  Why,  yes.  I'm  putting  on  the  meat."  There  was 
a  slight  hesitation  before  Jean  handed  him  the  pages 
she  had  done.  "  I  expect  it's  awfully  crude,"  she  apol- 
ogized, with  one  of  her  diffident  spells.  "  I'm  afraid 
you'll  laugh  at  me." 


226      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

Robert  Grant  Burns  was  reading  rapidly,  mentally 
photographing  the  scenes  as  he  went  along.  He  held 
out  his  hand  again  without  looking  toward  her. 
"  Lemme  take  your  pencil  a  minute.  I  believe  I^d  have 
a  panoram  of  the  coulee, —  a  long  shot  from  out  there 
in  the  meadow.  And  show  the  brother  and  you  leaving 
the  house  and  riding  toward  the  camera;  at  the  gate, 
you  separate.  You're  going  to  town,  say.  He  rides 
on  toward  the  hills.  That  fixes  you  both  as  belonging 
here  at  the  ranch,  identifies  you  two  and  the  home  ranch 
both  in  thirty  feet  or  so  of  the  film,  with  a  leader  that 
tells  you're  brother  and  sister.  See  what  I  mean  ? " 
He  scribbled  a  couple  of  lines,  crossed  oui:  a  couple, 
and  went  on  reading  to  where  he  had  interrupted  Jean 
in  the  middle  of  a  sentence. 

"  I  see  you're  writing  in  a  part  for  that  Lite  Avery ; 
how  do  you  know  he'd  do  it  ?  Or  can  put  it  over  if  he 
tries  ?     He  don't  look  to  me  like  an  actor." 

"  Lite,"  declared  Jean  with  a  positiveness  that  would 
have  thrilled  Lite,  had  he  heard  her,  "  can  put  over  any- 
thing he  tries  to  put  over.  And  he'll  do  it,  if  I  tell 
him  he  must !  "  Which  showed  what  were  Jean's  ideas, 
at  least  on  the  subject  of  which  was  the  master. 

"  What  you  going  to  call  it  ?  The  Perils  of  the 
Prairie,  say  ?  "  Burns  abandoned  further  argument  on 
the  subject  of  Lite's  ability. 


NEW    KIND    OF    PICTURE     227 

'^  Oh,  no !  That's  awfully  cheap.  That  would  stamp 
it  as  a  melodrama  before  any  of  the  picture  appeared 
on  the  screen." 

Robert  Grant  Burns  had  not  been  serious ;  he  had  been 
testing  lean's  originality.  "  Well,  what  will  we  call  it, 
then?" 

"Oh,  we'll  call  it — "  Jean  nibbled  the  rubber  on 
her  pencil  and  looked  at  him  with  that  unseeing,  in- 
trospective gaze  which  was  a  trick  of  hers.  "  We'll  call 
it  —  does  it  hurt  if  we  use  real  names  that  we've  a  right 
to  ?  "  She  got  a  head-shake  for  answer.  "  Well,  we'll 
call  it, —  let's  just  call  it  —  Jean,  of  the  Lazy  A. 
Would  that  sound  as  if  — " 

"  Great !  Girl,  you're  a  winner !  Jean,  of  the  Lazy 
A!  Say,  that  title  alone  will  jump  the  releases  ten 
per  cent.,  if  I  know  the  game.  Featuring  Jean  herself ; 
pictures  made  right  at  the  Lazy  A  Ranch.  Say,  the 
dope  I  can  give  our  publicity  man  — " 

Thereupon  Jean,  remembering  Gil  Huntley's  lecture 
on  the  commercial  side  of  the  proposition,  startled  his 
enthusiasm  with  one  naive  question. 

^'  How  much  will  the  Great  Western  Film  Company 
pay  me  extra  for  furnishing  the  story  I  play  in  ? " 

"  How  much  ? "  Robert  Grant  Burns  blurted  the 
words  automatically. 

Yes.     How  much?     If  it  will  jump  your  releases 


i( 


228      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

ten  per  cent,  they  ought  to  pay  me  quite  a  lot  more  than 
they're  paying  me  now." 

"  You're  doing  pretty  well  as  it  is,"  Burns  reminded 
her,  with  a  visible  dampening  of  his  eagerness. 

"  For  keeping  your  cut-and-dried  stories  from  falling 
flat,  yes.  But  for  writing  the  kind  of  play  that  will 
have  just  as  many  '  punches '  and  still  be  true  to  life, 
and  then  for  acting  it  all  out  and  putting  in  those 
punches, —  that's  a  different  matter,  Mr.  Burns.  And 
you'll  have  to  pay  Lite  a  decent  salary,  or  I'll  quit  right 
here.  I'm  thinking  up  stunts  for  us  two  that  are  aw- 
fully risky.  You'll  have  to  pay  for  that.  But  it  will 
be  worth  while.     You  wait  till  you  see  Lite  in  action !  " 

Gil  would  have  been  exuberant  over  the  literal  man- 
ner in  which  Jean  was  taking  his  advice  and  putting 
it  to  the  test,  had  he  overheard  her  driving  her  bargain 
with  Robert  Grant  Burns.  He  would  have  been  ex- 
uberant, but  he  would  never  have  dared  to  say  the  things 
that  Jean  said,  or  to  have  taken  the  stand  that  she 
took.  Robert  Grant  Bums  found  himself  very  much 
in  the  position  which  Lite  had  occupied  for  three  years. 
He  had  well-defined  ideas  upon  the  subject  before  them, 
and  he  had  the  outer  semblance  of  authority;  but  his 
ideas  and  his  authority  had  no  weight  whatever  with 
Jean,  since  she  had  made  up  her  mind. 

Before  Jean  left  the  subject  of  salary,  Robert  Grant 


NEW    KIND    OF    PICTURE     229 

Burns  found  himself  committed  to  a  promise  of  an  in- 
crease, provided  that  Jean  really  ''  delivered  the  goods  " 
in  the  shape  of  a  scenario  serial,  and  did  the  stunts 
which  she  declared  she  could  and  v^ould  do. 

Before  she  settled  down  to  the  actual  planning  of 
scenes,  Robert  Grant  Burns  had  also  yielded  to  her  de- 
mands for  Lite  Avery,  though  you  may  think  that  he 
thereby  showed  himself  culpably  weak,  unless  you  real- 
ize what  sort  of  a  person  Jean  was  in  argument.  With- 
out having  more  than  a  good-morning  acquaintance  with 
Lite,  Burns  agreed  to  put  him  on  "in  stock  ''  and  to  pay 
him  the  salary  Jean  demanded  for  him,  provided  that, 
in  the  try-out  of  the  first  picture,  Lite  should  prove  he 
could  deliver  the  goods.  Burns  was  always  extremely 
firm  in  the  matter  of  having  the  "  goods  "  delivered ; 
that  was  why  he  was  the  Great  Western's  leading  direc- 
tor. Mere  dollars  he  would  yield,  if  driven  into  a  cor- 
ner and  kept  there  long  enough,  but  he  must  have  re- 
sults. 

These  things  being  settled,  they  spent  about  two  hours 
on  the  doorstep  of  Jean's  room,  writing  the  first  reel  of 
the  story;  which  is  to  say  that  Jean  wrote,  and  Burns 
took  each  sheet  from  her  hands  as  it  was  finished,  and 
read  and  made  certain  technical  revisions  now  and  then. 
Several  times  he  grunted  words  of  approbation,  and 
several  times  he  let  his  fat,  black  cigar  go  out,  while  he 


230      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

visualized  the  scenes  which  Jean's  flying  pencil  por- 
trayed. 

"  I'll  go  over  and  get  Lite/'  she  said  at  last,  rubbing 
the  cramp  out  of  her  writing-hand  and  easing  her  shoul- 
ders from  their  strain  of  stooping.  "  There'll  be  time, 
while  you  send  the  machine  after  some  real  hats  for  your 
rustlers.  Those  toadstool  things  were  never  seen  in  this 
country  till  you  brought  them  in  your  trunk ;  and  this 
story  is  going  to  be  real !  Your  rustlers  won't  look  much 
different  from  the  punchers,  except  that  they'll  be  riding 
different  horses;  we'll  have  to  get  some  paint  some- 
where and  make  a  pinto  out  of  that  wall-eyed  cayuse 
Gil  rides  mostly.  He'll  lead  the  rustlers,  and  you  want 
the  audience  to  be  able  to  spot  him  a  mile  off.  Lite 
and  I  will  fix  the  horse;  we'll  put  spots  on  him  like  a 
horse  Uncle  Carl  used  to  own." 

"  Maybe  you  can't  get  Lite,"  Burns  pointed  out,  eye- 
ing her  over  a  match  blaze.  "  He  never  acted  to  me 
like  he  had  the  movie-fever  at  all.  Passes  us  up  with  a 
nod,  and  has  never  showed  signs  of  life  on  the  subject. 
Lee  can  ride  pretty  well,"  he  added  artfully,  "  even  if  he 
wasn't  born  in  the  saddle.  And  we  can  fake  that  rope 
work." 

"  All  right ;  you  can  send  the  machine  in  with  a  wire 
to  your' company  for  a  leading  woman."  Jean  picked 
up  her  gloves  and  turned  to  pull  the  door  shut  behind 


NEW    KIND    OF    PICTURE     231 

her,  and  by  other  signs  and  tokens  made  plain  her  in- 
tention to  leave. 

"  Oh,  well,  you  can  see  if  he'll  come.  I  said  I'd  try 
him  out,  but  — " 

"  He'll  come.  I  told  you  that  before."  Jean  stopped 
and  looked  at  her  director  coldly.  "  And  you'll  keep 
your  word.  And  we  won't  have  any  fake  stuff  in  this, 
—  except  the  spots  on  the  pinto."  She  smiled  then. 
"  We  wouldn't  do  that,  but  there  isn't  a  pinto  in  the 
country  right  now  that  would  be  what  we  want.  You 
had  better  get  your  bunch  together,  because  I'll  be  back 
in  a  little  while  with  Lite." 

As  it  happened,  Lite  was  on  his  w^ay  to  the  Lazy  A, 
and  met  Jean  in  the  bottom  of  the  sandy  hollow.  His 
eyes  lightened  when  he  saw  her  come  loping  up  to  him. 
But  when  she  was  close  enough  to  read  the  expression 
of  his  face,  it  was"  schooled  again  to  the  frank  friend- 
ship which  Jean  always  had  accepted  as  a  matter  of 
course. 

"  Hello,  Lite !  I've  got  a  job  for  you  with  the 
movies,"  Jean  announced,  as  soon  as  she  was  within 
speaking  distance.  "  You  can  come  right  back  with 
me  and  begin.  It's  going  to  be  great.  We're  going 
to  make  a  real  Western  picture,  Lite,  you  and  I.  Lee 
and  Gil  and  all  the  rest  will  be  in  it,  of  course;  but 
we're  going  to  put  in  the  real  West.     And  we're  going 


232      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

to  put  in  the  ranch, —  the  real  Lazy  A,  Lite.  Not  these 
dinky  little  sets  that  Burns  has  toggled  up  with  bits  of 
the  bluff  showing  for  background,  but  the  ranch  just 
as  it  —  it  used  to  be."  Jean's  eyes  grew  wistful  while 
she  looked  at  him  and  told  him  her  plans. 

"  I'm  writing  the  scenario  myself,"  she  explained, 
"  and  that's  why  you  have  to  be  in  it.  I've  written  in 
stuff  that  the  other  boys  can't  do  to  save  their  lives. 
'Real  stuff,  Lite !  You  and  I  are  going  to  run  the  ranch 
and  punch  the  cows, —  Lazy  A  cattle,  what  there  are  left 
of  them, —  and  hunt  down  a  bunch  of  rustlers  that  have 
their  hangout  somewhere  down  in  the  breaks;  we  don't 
know  just  where,  yet.  The  places  we'll  ride,  they'll 
need  an  airship  to  follow  with  the  camera !  I  haven't 
got  it  all  planned  yet,  but  the  first  reel  is  about  done; 
we're  going  to  begin  on  it  this  afternoon.  We'll  need 
you  in  the  first  scenes, —  just  ranch  scenes,  with  you  and 
Lee;  he's  my  brother,  and  he'll  get  killed —  Now, 
what's  the  matter  with  you  ?  "  She  stopped  and  eyed 
him  disapprovingly.  "  Why  have  you  got  that  stubborn 
look  to  your  mouth  ?  Lite,  see  here.  Before  you  say  a 
word,  I  want  to  tell  you  that  you  are  not  to  refuse  this. 
It  —  it  means  money,  Lite ;  for  you,  and  for  me,  too. 
And  that  means  —  dad  at  home  again.     Lite  — " 

Lite  looked  at  her,  looked  away  and  bit  his  lips.  It 
was  long  since  he  had  seen  tears  in  Jean's  steady,  brown 


NEW    KIND    OF    PICTURE     233 

eyes,  and  the  sight  of  them  hurt  him  intolerably.  There 
was  nothing  that  he  could  say  to  strengthen  her  faith, 
absolutely  nothing.  He  did  not  see  how  money  could 
free  her  father  before  his  sentence  expired.  Her  faith 
in  her  dad  seemed  to  Lite  a  wonderful  thing,  but  he 
himself  could  not  altogether  share  it,  although  he  had 
lately  come  to  feel  a  very  definite  doubt  about  Aleck's 
guilt.  Money  could  not  help  them,  except  that  it  could 
buy  back  the  Lazy  A  and  restock  it,  and  make  of  it  the 
home  it  had  been  three  years  ago. 

Lite,  in  the  secret  heart  of  him,  did  not  want  Jean 
to  set  her  heart  on  doing  that.  Lite  was  almost  in  a 
position  to  do  it  himself,  just  as  he  had  planned  and 
schemed  and  saved  to  do,  ever  since  the  day  when  he 
took  Jean  to  the  Bar  Nothing,  and  announced  to  her 
that  he  intended  to  take  care  of  her  in  place  of  her 
father.  He  had  wanted  to  surprise  Jean;  and  Jean, 
with  her  usual  headlong  energy  bent  upon  the  same 
object,  seemed  in  a  fair  way  to  forestall  him,  unless  he 
moved  very  quickly. 

"  Lite,  you  won't  spoil  everything  now,  just  when  I'm 
given  this  great  opportunity,  will  you  ?  "  Jean's  voice 
was  steady  again.  She  could  even  meet  his  eyes  with- 
out flinching.  "  Gil  says  it's  a  great  opportunity,  in 
every  way.  It's  a  series  of  pictures,  really,  and  they 
are  to  be  called  ^  Jean,  of  the  Lazy  A.'     Gil  says  they 


284      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

will  be  advertised  a  lot,  and  make  me  famous.  I  don't 
care  about  that ;  but  the  company  will  pay  me  more,  and 
that  means  —  that  means  that  I  can  get  out  and  find 
Art  Osgood  sooner,  and  —  get  dad  home.  And  you  will 
have  to  help.  The  whole  thing,  as  I  have  planned  it, 
depends  upon  you,  Lite.  The  riding  and  the  roping, 
and  stuff  like  that,  you'll  have  to  do.  You'll  have  to 
work  right  alongside  me  in  all  that  outdoor  stuff,  be- 
cause I  am  going  to  quit  doing  all  those  spectacular, 
stagey  stunts,  and  get  down  to  real  business.  I've  made 
Burns  see  that  there  will  be  money  in  it  for  his  com- 
pany, so  he  is  perfectly  willing  to  let  me  go  ahead  v/ith 
it  and  do  it  my  way.  Our  way,  Lite,  because,  once  you 
start  with  it,  you  can  help  me  plan  things."  Where- 
upon, having  said  almost  everything  she  could  think  of 
that  would  tend  to  soften  that  stubborn  look  in  Lite's 
face,  Jean  waited. 

Lite  did  a  great  deal  of  thinking  in  the  next  two  or 
three  minutes,  but  being  such  a  bottled-up  person,  he 
did  not  say  half  of  what  he  thought ;  and  Jean,  closely 
as  she  watched  his  face,  could  not  read  what  was  in  his 
mind.  Of  Aleck  he  thought,  and  the  slender  chance 
there  was  of  any  one  doing  what  Jean  hoped  to  do ;  of 
Art  Osgood,  and  the  meager  possibility  that  Art  could 
shed  any  light  upon  the  killing  of  Johnny  Croft ;  of  the 
Lazy  A,  and  the  probable  price  that  Carl  would  put  upon 


NEW    KIND    OF    PICTURE     235 

it  if  he  were  asked  to  sell  the  ranch  and  the  stock;  of 
the  money  he  had  already  saved,  and  the  chance  that,  if 
he  went  to  Carl  now  and  made  him  an  offer,  Carl  would 
accept.  He  weighed  mentally  all  the  various  elements 
that  went  to  make  up  the  depressing  tangle  of  the  whole 
affair,  and  decided  that  he  would  write  at  once  to  Ross- 
man,  the  lawyer  who  had  defended  Aleck,  and  put  the 
whole  thing  into  his  hands.  He  would  then  know  just 
where  he  stood,  and  what  he  would  have  to  do,  and  what 
legal  steps  he  must  take. 

He  looked  at  Jean  and  grinned  a  little.  "  I'm  not 
pretty  enough  for  a  picture  actor,"  he  said  whimsically. 
"  Better  let  me  be  a  rustler  and  wear  a  mask,  if  you 
don't  want  folks  to  throw  fits." 

"  You'll  be  what  I  want  you  to  be,"  Jean  told  him 
with  the  little  smile  in  her  eyes  that  Lite  had  learned  to 
love  more  than  he  could  ever  say.  "  I'm  going  to  make 
us  both  famous,  Lite.  ISTow,  come  on,  Bobby  Burns  has 
probably  chewed  up  a  whole  box  of  those  black  cigars, 
waiting  for  us  to  show  up." 

I  am  not  going  to  describe  the  making  of  "  Jean,  of 
the  Lazy  A."  It  would  be  interesting,  but  this  is  not 
primarily  a  story  of  the  motion-picture  business,  remem- 
ber. It  is  the  story  of  the  Lazy  A  and  the  problem  that 
both  Jean  and  Lite  were  trying  to  solve.  The  Great 
Western  Film  Company  became,  through  sheer  chance, 


236      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

a  factor  in  that  problem,  and  for  that  reason  we  have 
come  into  rather  close  touch  with  them ;  but  aside  from 
the  fact  that  Jean's  photo-play  brought  Lite  into  the 
company  and  later  took  them  both  to  Los  Angeles,  this 
particular  picture  has  no  great  bearing  upon  the 
matter. 

Robert  Grant  Burns  had  intended  taking  his  com- 
pany back  to  Los  Angles  in  August,  when  the  hot  winds 
began  to  sweep  over  the  range  land.  But  Jean's  story 
was  going  "  big."  Jean  was  throwing  herself  into  the 
part  heart  and  mind.  She  lived  it.  With  Lite  riding 
beside  her,  helping  her  with  all  his  skill  and  energy  and 
much  enthusiasm,  she  almost  forgot  her  great  undertak- 
ing sometimes,  she  was  so  engrossed  with  her  work. 
With  his  experience,  suggesting  frequent  changes,  she 
added  new  touches  of  realism  to  this  story  that  made  the 
case-hardened  audience  of  the  Great  Western's  private 
projection  room  invent  new  ways  of  voicing  their  en- 
thusiasm, when  the  negative  films  Pete  Low^y  sent  in  to 
headquarters  were  printed  and  given  their  trial  run. 

They  were  just  well  started  when  August  came  with 
its  hot  winds.  They  stayed  and  worked  upon  the  serial 
until  it  was  finished,  and  that  meant  that  they  stayed 
until  the  first  October  blizzard  caught  them  while  they 
were  finishing  the  last  reel. 

Do  you  know  what  they  did  then  ?     Jean  changed  a 


NEW    KIND    OF    PICTURE     237 

few  scenes  around  at  Lite's  suggestion,  and  they  went  out 
into  the  hills  in  the  teeth  of  the  storm  and  pictured  Jean 
lost  in  the  blizzard,  and  coming  by  chance  upon  the  out- 
laws at  their  camp,  which  she  and  Lite  and  Lee  had 
been  hunting  through  all  the  previous  installments  of 
the  story.  It  was  great  stuff, —  that  ride  Jean  made  in 
the  blizzard, —  and  that  scene  where,  with  numbed 
fingers  and  snow  matted  in  her  dangling  braid,  she  held 
up  the  rustlers  and  marched  them  out  of  the  hills,  and 
met  Lite  coming  in  search  of  her. 

You  will  remember  it,  if  you  have  been  frequenting 
the  silent  drama  and  were  fortunate  enough  to  see  the 
picture.  You  may  have  wondered  at  the  realism  of 
those  blizzard  scenes,  and  you  may  have  been  curious  to 
know  how  the  camera  got  the  effect.  It  was  wonderful 
photography,  of  course ;  but  then,  the  blizzard  was  real, 
and  that  pinched,  half  frozen  look  on  Jean's  face  in  the 
close-up  where  she  met  Lite  was  real.  Jean  was  so  cold 
when  she  turned  the  rustlers  over  to  Lite  that  when  she 
started  to  dismount  and  fell  in  a  heap, —  you  remember  ? 
—  she  was  not  acting  at  all.  J^either  was  Lite  acting 
when  he  plunged  through  the  drift  and  caught  Jean  in 
his  arms  and  held  her  close  against  him  just  as  that  scene 
ended.  In  the  name  of  realism  they  cut  the  scene,  be- 
cause Lite  showed  that  he  forgot  all  about  the  outlaws 
and  the  part  he  was  playing. 


238      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

So  they  finished  the  picture,  and  the  whole  company 
packed  their  trunks  thankfully  and  turned  their  faces 
and  all  their  thoughts  westward. 

Jean  was  not  at  all  sure  that  she  wanted  to  go.  It 
seemed  almost  as  though  she  were  setting  aside  her  great 
undertaking;  as  though  she  w^ere  weakly  deserting  her 
dad  when  she  closed  the  door  for  the  last  time  upon  her 
room  and  turned  her  back  upon  Lazy  A  coulee.  But 
there  were  certain  things  which  comforted  her ;  Lite  was 
going  along  to  look  after  the  horses,  he  told  her  just  the 
day  before  they  started.  For  Robert  Grant  Bums,  with 
an  eye  to  the  advertising  value  of  the  move,  had  decided 
that  Pard  must  go  with  them.  He  would  have  to  hire 
an  express  car,  any^^ay,  he  said,  for  the  automobile  and 
the  scenery  sets  they  had  used  for  interiors.  And  there 
would  be  plenty  of  room  for  Pard  and  Lite's  horse  and 
another  which  Robert  Grant  Bums  had  used  to  carry 
him  to  locations  in  rough  country,  where  the  automobile 
could  not  go.  The  car  would  run  in  passenger  service, 
Burns  said, —  he'd  ^x  that, —  so  Lite  would  be  right 
with  the  company  all  the  way  out. 

Jean  appreciated  all  that  as  a  personal  favor,  which 
merely  proved  how  unsophisticated  she  really  was.  She 
did  not  know  that  Robert  Grant  Burns  was  thinking 
chiefly  of  furnishing  material  for  the  publicity  man  to 
use  in  news  stories.     She  never  once  dreamed  that  the 


NEW   KIND    OF    PICTURE     239 

coming  of  ^'  Jean,  of  the  Lazy  A  ^'  and  Jean's  pet  horse 
Pard,  and  of  Lite,  who  had  done  so  many  surprising 
things  in  the  picture,  would  be  heralded  in  all  the  Los 
Angeles  papers  before  ever  they  left  Montana. 

Jean  was  concerned  chiefly  with  attending  to  certain 
matters  which  seemed  to  her  of  vital  importance.  If  she 
must  go,  there  was  something  which  she  must  do  first, 
—  something  which  for  three  years  she  had  shrunk  from 
doing.  So  she  told  Eobert  Grant  Burns  that  she  would 
meet  him  and  his  company  in  Helena,  and  without  a 
word  of  explanation,  she  left  two  days  in  advance  of 
them,  just  after  she  had  had  another  maddening  talk 
with  her  Uncle  Carl,  wherein  she  had  repeated  her  in- 
tention of  employing  a  lawyer.       ^ 

When  she  boarded  the  train  at  Helena,  she  did  not  tell 
even  Lite  just  where  she  had  been  or  what  she  had  been 
doing.  She  did  not  need  to  tell  Lite.  He  looked  into 
her  face  and  saw  there  the  shadow  of  the  high,  stone  wall 
that  shut  her  dad  away  from  the  world,  and  he  did  not 
ask  a  single  question. 


CHAPTEE  XIX 

IN    LOS    ANGELES 

WHEN  she  felt  bewildered,  Jean  had  the  trick 
of  appearing  merely  reserved ;  and  that  is  what 
saved  her  from  the  charge  of  rusticity  when  Kobert 
Grant  Burns  led  her  through  the  station  gateway  and 
into  a  small  reception,  l^o  less  a  man  than  Dewitt, 
President  of  the  Great  Western  Film  Company,  clasped 
her  hand  and  held  it,  while  he  said  how  glad  he  was  to 
welcome  her.  Jean,  unawed  by  his  greatness  and  the 
honor  he  was  paying  her,  looked  up  at  him  with  that  dis- 
tracting little  beginning  of  a  smile,  and  replied  with 
that  even-more  distracting  little  drawl  in  her  voice,  and 
wondered  why  Mrs.  Gay  should  become  so  plainly  flus- 
tered all  at  once. 

Bewitt  took  her  by  the  arm,  introduced  her  to  a  curi- 
ous-eyed group  with  a  warming  cordiality  of  manner, 
and  led  her  away  through  a  crowd  that  stared  and  whis- 
pered, and  up  to  a  great,  beautiful,  purple  machine  with 
a  colored  chauffeur  in  dust-colored  uniform.  Dewitt 
was  talking  easily  of  trivial  things,  and  shooting  a  ques- 
tion now  and  then  over  his  shoulder  at  Kobert  Grant 
Burns,  who  had  shed  much  of  his  importance  and  seemed 


IN   LOS    ANGELES  241 

indefinably  subservient  toward  Mr.  Dewitt.  Jean 
turned  toward  him  abruptly. 

"  Where's  Lite  ?  Did  you  send  some  one  to  help  him 
with  Pard  ? "  she  asked  with  real  concern  in  her  voice. 
"  Those  three  horses  aren't  used  to  towns  the  size  of 
this,  Mr.  Bums.  Lite  is  going  to  have  his  hands  full 
with  Pard.  If  you  will  excuse  me,  Mr.  Dewitt,  I  think 
I'll  go  and  see  how  he's  making  out." 

Mr.  Dewitt  glanced  over  her  head  and  met  the  de- 
lighted grin  of  Jim  Gates,  the  publicity  manager.  The 
grin  said  that  Jean  was  "  running  true  to  form,"  which 
was  a  pet  simile  with  Jim  Gates,  and  usually  accompan- 
ied that  particular  kind  of  grin.  There  would  be  an 
interesting  half  column  in  the  next  day's  papers  about 
Jean's  arrival  and  her  deep  concern  for  Lite  and  her 
wonderful  horse  Pard,  but  of  course  she  did  not  know 
that. 

"  I've  got  men  here  to  help  with  the  horses,"  Mr. 
Dewitt  assured  her,  while  he  gently  urged  her  into  the 
machine.  "  They'll  be  brought  right  out  to  the  studio. 
I'm  taking  you  home  with  me  in  obedience  to  my  wife's 
orders.  She  is  anxious  to  meet  the  young  woman  who 
can  out-ride  and  out-shoot  any  man  on  the  screen,  and 
can  still  be  sweet  and  feminine  and  lovable.  I'm  quot- 
ing my  wife,  you  see,  though  I  won't  say  those  are  not 
my  sentiments  also." 


242      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

"Your  poor  wife  is  going  to  receive  a  shock,"  said 
Jean  in  an  unimpressed  tone.  "  But  it's  dear  of  her 
to  want  to  meet  me."  Back  of  her  speech  was  an  irri- 
tated impatience  that  she  should  be  gobbled  and  carried 
off  like  this,  when  she  was  sure  that  she  ought  to  be 
helping  Lite  get  that  fool  Pard  unloaded  and  safely 
through  the  clang  and  clatter  of  the  down-town  district. 

Robert  Grant  Bums,  half  facing  her  on  a  folding  seat, 
sent  her  a  queer,  puzzled  glance  from  under  his  eye- 
brows. Four  months  had  Jean  been  working  under  his 
direction ;  four  months  had  he  studied  her,  and  still  she 
puzzled  him.  She  was  not  ignorant  —  the  girl  had  been 
out  among  civilized  folks  and  had  learned  town  ways; 
she  was  not  stupid  —  she  could  keep  him  guessing,  and 
he  thought  he  knew  all  the  quirks  of  human  nature,  too. 
Then  why,  in  the  name  of  common  sense,  did  she  take 
Dewitt  and  his  patronage  in  this  matter-of-fact  way,  as 
if  it  were  his  everyday  business  to  meet  strange  em- 
ployees and  take  them  home  to  his  wife  ?  He  glanced 
at  Dewitt  and  caught  a  twinkle  of  perfect  understand- 
ing in  the  bright  blue  eyes  of  his  chief.  Burns  made  a 
sound  between  a  grunt  and  a  chuckle,  and  turned  his 
eyes  away  immediately;  but  Bewitt  chose  to  make 
speech  upon  the  subject. 

"You  haven't  spoiled  our  new  leading  woman  — 
yet,"  he  observed  idly. 


IN    LOS    ANGELES  243 

^^  Oh,  but  lie  has,"  Jean  dissented.  "  He  has  got  me 
trained  so  that  when  he  says  smile,  my  mouth  stretches 
itself  automatically.  When  he  says  sob,  I  sob.  He  just 
snaps  his  fingers,  Mr.  Dewitt,  and  I  sit  up  and  go 
through  my  tricks  very  nicely.  You  ought  to  see  how 
nicely  I  do  them." 

Mr.  Dewitt  put  up  a  hand  and  pulled  at  his  close- 
cropped,  white  mustache  that  could  not  hide  the  twitch- 
ing of  his  lips.  "  I  have  seen,"  he  said  drily,  and 
leaned  forward  for  a  word  w^ith  the  liveried  chauffeur. 
"  Turn  up  on  Eroadway  and  stop  at  the  Victoria/'  he 
said,  and  the  chin  of  the  driver  dropped  an  inch  to  prove 
he  heard. 

Dewitt  laid  his  fingers  on  Jean's  arm  to  catch  her  at- 
tention. "  Do  you  see  that  picture  on  the  billboard  over 
there  ? "  he  asked,  with  a  special  inflection  in  his  nice, 
crisp  voice.     "  Does  it  look  familiar  to  you  ?  " 

Jean  looked,  and  pinched  her  brows  together.  Just 
at  first  she  did  not  comprehend.  There  was  her  name 
in  fancy  letters  two  feet  high :  "  Jean,  of  the  Lazy 
A."  It  blared  at  the  passer-by,  but  it  did  not  look 
familiar  at  all.  Beneath  was  a  high-colored  poster  of 
a  girl  on  a  horse.  The  horse  was  standing  on  its  hind 
feet,  pawing  the  air;  its  nostrils  flared  red;  its  tail 
swept  like  a  willow  plume  behind.  The  machine  slowed 
and  stopped  for  the  traffic  signal  at  the  crossing,  and 


244      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

still  Jean  studied  the  poster.  It  certainly  did  not  look 
in  the  least  familiar. 

"  Is  that  supposed  to  be  me,  on  that  plum-colored 
horse  ? "  she  drawled,  when  they  slid  out  slowly  in  the 
wake  of  a  great  truck. 

"  Why,  don't  you  like  it  ? "  Dewitt  looked  at  Jim 
Gates,  who  was  again  grinning  delightedly  and  surrep^ 
titiously  scribbling  something  on  the  margin  of  a  folded 
paper  he  was  carrying. 

Jean  turned  upon  him  a  mildly  resentful  glance. 
"  ISTo,  I  don't.  Pard  is  not  purple ;  he's  brown.  And 
he's  got  the  dearest  white  hoofs  and  a  white  sock  on  his 
left  hind  foot ;  and  he  doesn't  snort  fire  and  brimstone, 
either."  She  glanced  anxiously  at  the  jam  of  wagons 
and  automobiles  and  clanging  street-cars.  "  I  don't 
know,  though,"  she  amended  ruefully,  "  I  think  perhaps 
he  will,  too,  when  he  sees  all  this.  I  really  ought  to 
have  stayed  with  him." 

"  You  don't  think  Lite  quite  capable  of  taking  care 
of  him." 

^'  Oh,  yes,  of  course  he  is !  But  I  just  feel  that 
way." 

Dewitt  shifted  a  little,  so  that  he  was  half  facing  her, 
and  could  look  at  her  without  having  to  turn  his  head. 
If  his  eyes  told  anything  of  his  thoughts,  the  President 
of  the  Great  Western  Film  Company  was  curious  to 


IN    LOS    ANGELES  245 

know  how  she  felt  about  her  position  and  her  sudden 
fame  and  the  work  itself.  Before  they  had  worked 
their  way  into  the  next  block,  he  decided  that  Jean  was 
not  greatly  interested  in  any  of  these  things,  and  he 
wondered  why. 

The  machine  slowed,  swung  to  the  curb,  and  crept 
forward  and  stopped  in  front  of  the  Victoria.  Dewitt 
looked  at  Bums  and  Pete  Lowry,  who  was  on  the  front 
seat. 

"  I  thought  you'd  like  to  take  a  glance  at  the  lobby 
display  the  Victoria  is  making/'  he  said  casually. 
"  They  are  running  the  Lazy  A  series,  you  know, —  to 
capacity  houses,  too,  they  tell  me.  Shall  we  get 
out?" 

The  chauffeur  reached  back  with  that  gesture  of  tol- 
eration and  infinite  boredom  common  to  his  kind  and 
swung  open  the  door. 

Robert  Grant  Burns  started  up.  "  Come  on,  Jean," 
he  said  eagerly.  "  I  don't  suppose  that  eternal  calm  of 
yours  will  ever  show  a  wrinkle  on  the  surface,  but  let's 
have  a  look,  anyway." 

Pete  Lowry  was  already  out  and  half  way  across  the 
pavement.  Pete  had  lain  awake  in  his  bed,  many's  the 
night,  planning  the  posing  of  "  stills  "  that  would  show 
Jean  at  her  best;  he  had  visioned  them  on  display  in 
theater  lobbies,  and  now  he  collided  with  a  hurrying 


246      JEAN   OF    THE    LAZY   A 

shopper  in  his  haste  to  see  the  actual  fulfillment  of  those 
plans. 

Jean  herself  was  not  so  eager.  She  went  with  the 
others,  and  she  saw  herself  pictured  on  Pard;  on  her 
two  feet;  and  sitting  upon  a  rock  with  her  old  Stetson 
tilted  over  one  eye  and  her  hair  tousled  with  the  wind. 
She  was  loading  her  six-shooter,  and  talking  to  Lite, 
who  was  sitting  on  his  heels  with  a  cigarette  in  his 
fingers,  looking  at  her  with  that  bottled-up  look  in  his 
eyes.  She  did  not  remember  when  the  picture  was 
taken,  but  she  liked  that  best  of  all.  She  saw  herself 
leaning  out  of  the  window  of  her  room  at  the  Lazy  A. 
She  remembered  that  time.  She  was  talking  to  Gil 
outside,  and  Pete  had  come  up  and  planted  his  tripod 
directly  in  front  of  her,  and  had  commanded  her  to 
hold  her  pose.  She  did  not  count  them,  but  she 
had  curious  impressions  of  dozens  of  pictures  of 
herself  scattered  here  and  there  along  the  walls  of 
the  long,  cool-looking  lobby.  Every  single  one  of 
them  was  marked :  "  Jean,  of  the  Lazy  A."  Just 
that. 

On  a  bulletin  board  in  the  middle  of  the  entrance,  just 
before  the  marble  box-office,  it  was  lettered  again  in 
dignified  black  type :  "  Jeait  of  the  Lazy  A."  Be- 
low was  one  word :     "  To-day." 

"  It  looks  awfully  queer,"  said  Jean  to  Mr.  Dewitt, 


IN   LOS    ANGELES  247 

who  wanted  to  know  what  she  thought  of  it  all ;  ^'  they 
don't  explain  what  it's  all  ahout,  or  anything." 

"  ]^o,  they  don't."  Dewitt  pulled  his  mustache  and 
piloted  her  back  to  the  machine.  "  They  don't  have 
to." 

"ISTo,"  echoed  Robert  Grant  Burns,  with  the  fat 
chuckle  of  utter  content  in  the  knowledge  of  having 
achieved  something.  "  From  the  looks  of  things,  they 
don't  have  to."  He  looked  at  Jean  so  intently  that  she 
stared  back  at  him,  wondering  what  was  the  matter; 
and  when  he  saw  that  she  was  wondering,  he  gave  a 
snort. 

"  Good  Lord  I  "  he  said  to  himself,  just  above  a 
whisper,  and  looked  away,  despairing  of  ever  reading  the 
riddle  of  Jean's  unshakable  composure.  Was  it  pose? 
Was  the  girl  phlegmatic, —  with  that  face  which  was  so 
alive  with  the  thoughts  that  shuttled  back  and  forth  be- 
hind those  steady,  talking  eyes  of  hers?  She  was  not 
stupid;  Robert  Grant  Burns  knew  to  his  own  discom- 
fiture that  she  was  not  stupid.  ISTor  was  she  one  to 
pose ;  the  absolute  sincerity  of  her  terrific  frankness  was 
what  had  worried  Robert  Grant  Burns  most.  She  must 
know  that  she  had  jumped  into  the  front  rank  of  popular 
actresses,  and  stood  out  before  them  all, —  for  the  time 
being,  at  least.  And, —  he  stole  a  measuring  sidelong 
glance  at  her,  just  as  he  had  done  thousands  of  times  in 


248      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

the  past  four  months, —  here  she  was  in  the  private 
machine  of  the  President  of  the  Great  Western  Film 
Company,  with  that  great  man  himself  talking  to  her 
as  to  his  honored  guest.  She  had  seen  herself  featured 
alone  at  one  of  the  biggest  motion-picture  theaters  in 
Los  Angeles ;  so  w^ell  known  that  "  Jean,  of  the  Lazy 
A "  was  deemed  all-sufficient  as  information  and  ad- 
vertisement. She  had  reached  what  seemed  to  Eobert 
Grant  Burns  the  final  heights.  And  the  girl  sat  there, 
calm,  abstracted,  actually  not  listening  to  Dewitt  when 
he  talked!  She  was  not  even  thinking  about  him! 
Eobert  Grant  Burns  gave  her  another  quick,  resentful 
glance,  and  wondered  what  under  heaven  the  girl  was 
thinking  about. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  having  accepted  the  fact  that  she 
seemed  to  have  made  a  success  of  her  pictures,  her 
thoughts  had  drifted  to  what  seemed  to  her  more  vital. 
Had  she  done  wrong  to  come  away  out  here,  away  from 
her  problem  ?  The  distance  worried  her.  She  had  not 
even  found  out  who  was  the  mysterious  night-prowler, 
or  what  he  wanted.  He  had  never  come  again,  after 
that  night  when  Hepsy  had  scared  him  away.  From 
long  thinking  about  it,  she  had  come  to  a  vague,  general 
belief  that  his  visits  were  somehow  connected  with  the 
murder ;  but  in  what  manner,  she  could  not  even  form  a 
theory.     That  worried  her.     She  wished  now  that  she 


IN    LOS    ANGELES  249 

had  told  Lite  about  it.  She  was  foolish  not  to  have 
done  something,  instead  of  sticking  her  head  under  the 
bedclothes  and  just  shivering  till  he  left.  Lite  would 
have  found  out  who  the  man  was,  and  what  he  wanted. 
Lite  would  never  have  let  him  come  and  go  like  that. 
But  the  visits  had  seemed  so  absolutely  without  reason. 
There  was  nothing  to  steal,  and  nothing  to  find.  Still, 
she  wished  she  had  told  Lite,  and  let  him  find  out  who 
it  was. 

Then  her  talk  with  the  great  lawyer  had  been  dis- 
quieting. He  had  not  wanted  to  name  his  fee  for  de- 
fending her  dad ;  but  when  he  had  named  it,  it  did  not 
seem  so  enormous  as  she  had  imagined  it  to  be.  He 
had  asked  a  great  many  questions,  and  most  of  them 
puzzled  Jean.  He  had  said  that  he  would  take  up  the 
matter, —  by  which  she  believed  he  meant  an  investiga- 
tion of  her  uncle's  title  to  the  Lazy  A.  He  said  that  he 
would  see  her  father,  and  he  told  her  that  he  had  al- 
ready been  retained  to  investigate  the  whole  thing,  so 
that  she  need  not  worry  about  having  to  pay  him  a  fee. 
That,  he  said,  had  already  been  arranged,  though  he  did 
not  feel  at  liberty  to  name  his  client.  But  he  wanted 
to  assure  her  that  everything  was  being  done  that  could 
be  done. 

She  herself  had  seen  her  father.     She  shrank  within 
herself  and  tried  not  to  think  of  that  horrible  meeting. 


250      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

Her  soul  writhed  under  the  tormenting  memory  of  how 
she  had  seen  him.  She  had  not  been  able  to  talk  to  him 
at  all,  scarcely.  The  words  would  not  come.  She  had 
said  that  she  and  Lite  were  on  their  way  to  Los  Angeles, 
and  would  be  there  all  winter.  He  had  patted  her 
shoulder  with  a  tragic  apathy  in  his  manner,  and  had 
said  that  the  change  would  do  her  good.  And  that  was 
all  she  could  remember  that  they  had  talked  about. 
And  then  the  guard  came,  and  — 

That  is  what  she  was  thinking  about  while  the  big, 
purple  machine  slid  smoothly  through  the  tunnel,  nego- 
tiated a  rough  stretch  where  the  street-pavers  were  at 
work,  and  sped  purring  out  upon  the  boulevard  that 
stretched  away  to  Hollyw-ood  and  the  hills.  That  was 
what  she  kept  hidden  behind  the  "  eternal  calm  "  that 
so  irritated  Kobert  Grant  Bums  and  so  delighted  De- 
witt  and  so  interested  Jim  Gates,  who  studied  her  for 
what  "  copy  "  there  was  in  her  personality. 

It  was  the  same  when,  the  next  day,  Dewitt  himself 
took  her  over  to  the  big  plant  which  he  spoke  of  as  the 
studio.  It  was  immense,  and  yet  Jean  seemed  unim- 
pressed. She  was  gladder  to  see  Pard  and  Lite  again 
than  she  was  to  meet  the  six-hundred-a-week  star  whose 
popularity  she  seemed  in  a  fair  way  to  outrival.  Men 
and  women  who  were  "  in  stock,''  and  therefore  within 
the  social  pale,  were  introduced  to  her  and  said  nice, 


IN   LOS   ANGELES  251 

hackneyed  things  about  how  they  admired  her  work  and 
were  glad  to  welcome  her.  She  felt  the  warm  air  of 
good-fellowship  that  followed  her  everywhere.  All  of 
these  people  seemed  to  accept  her  at  once  as  one  of  them- 
selves. When  she  noticed  it,  she  was  amused  at  the 
way  the  "  extras ''  stood  back  and  looked  at  her  and 
whispered  together.  More  than  once  she  overheard 
what  seemed  almost  to  have  become  a  catch-phrase  out 
here ;  ''  Jean  of  the  Lazy  A  "  was  the  phrase. 

Jean  was  not  made  of  wood,  understand.  In  a  man- 
ner she  recognized  all  these  little  tributes,  and  to  a  cer- 
tain degree  she  appreciated  them.  She  was  glad  that 
she  had  made  such  a  success  of  it,  but  she  was  glad  be- 
cause it  would  help  her  to  take  her  dad  away  from  that 
horrible,  ghastly  place  and  that  horrible,  ghastly  death- 
in-life  under  which  he  lived.  In  three  years  he  had 
grown  old  and  stooped  —  her  dad ! 

And  Burns  twitted  her  ironically  because  she  could 
not  simper  and  lose  her  head  over  the  attentions  these 
people  were  loading  upon  her !  Save  for  the  fact  that 
in  this  way  she  could  earn  a  good  deal  of  money,  and 
could  pay  that  lawyer  Rossman^  and  trace  Art  Osgood, 
she  would  not  have  stayed ;  she  could  not  have  endured 
the  staying.,  For  the  easier  they  made  life  for  her,  the 
greater  contrast  did  they  make  between  her  and  her 
dad. 


252      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

Gil  brought  her  a  great  bunch  of  roses,  unbelievably 
beautiful  and  fragrant,  and  laughed  and  told  her  they 
didn't  look  much  like  those  snowdrifts  she  waded 
through  the  last  day  they  worked  on  the  Lazy  A  serial. 
For  just  a  minute  he  thought  Jean  was  going  to  throw 
them  at  him,  and  he  worried  himself  into  sleeplessness, 
poor  boy,  wondering  how  he  had  offended  her,  and  how 
he  could  make  amends.  Could  he  have  looked  into 
Jean's  soul,  he  would  have  seen  that  it  was  seared  with 
the  fresh  memory  of  iron  bars  and  high  walls  and  her 
dad  who  never  saw  any  roses;  and  that  the  contrast  be- 
tween their  beauty  and  the  terrible  barrenness  that  sur- 
rounded him  was  like  a  blow  in  her  face. 

Dewitt  himself  sensed  that  something  was  wrong  with 
her.  She  was  not  her  natural  self,  and  he  knew  it, 
though  his  acquaintance  with  her  was  a  matter  of  hours 
only.  Part  of  his  business  it  was  to  study  people,  to 
read  them;  he  read  Jean  now,  in  a  general  way.  ISTot 
being  a  clairvoyant,  he  of  course  had  no  inkling  of  the 
very  real  troubles  that  filled  her  mind,  though  the 
effect  of  those  troubles  he  saw  quite  plainly.  He 
watched  her  quietly  for  a  day,  and  then  he  applied  the 
best  remedy  he  knew. 

"  You've  just  finished  a  long,  hard  piece  of  work," 
he  said  in  his  crisp,  matter-of-fact  way,  on  the  second 
morning  after  her  arrival.     "  There  is  going  to  be  a 


IN    LOS    ANGELES  253 

delay  here  while  we  shape  things  up  for  the  winter,  and 
it  is  my  custom  to  keep  my  people  in  the  very  best  condi- 
tion to  work  right  up  to  the  standard.  So  you  are  all 
going  to  have  a  two-weeks  vacation,  Jean-of-the-Lazy- 
A.  At  full  salary,  of  course;  and  to  put  you  yourself 
into  the  true  holiday  spirit,  I'm  going  to  raise  your 
salary  to  a  hundred  and  seventy-five  a  week.  I  con- 
sider you  worth  it,"  he  added,  with  a  quieting  gesture 
of  uplifted  hand,  "  or  you  may  be  sure  I  wouldn't  pay 
it. 

"  Get  some  nice  old  lady  to  chaperone  you,  and  go  and 
play.  The  ocean  is  good;  get  somewhere  on  the  beach. 
Or  go  to  Catalina  and  play  there.  Or  stay  here,  and  go 
to  the  movies.  Go  and  see  *  Jean,  of  the  Lazy  A,'  and 
watch  how  the  audience  lives  with  her  on  the  screen. 
Go  up  and  talk  to  the  wife.  She  told  me  to  bring  you 
up  for  dinner.  You  go  climb  into  my  machine,  and 
tell  Bob  to  take  you  to  the  house  now.  Run  along,  Jean 
of  the  Lazy  A !     This  is  an  order  from  your  chief." 

Jean  wanted  to  cry.  She  held  the  roses,  that  she  al- 
most hated  for  their  very  beauty  and  fragrance,  close 
pressed  in  her  arms,  while  she  went  away  toward  the 
machine.  Dewitt  looked  after  her,  thought  she  meant  to 
obey  him,  and  turned  to  greet  a  great  man  of  the  town 
who  had  been  waiting  for  five  minutes  to  speak  to  him. 

Jean  did  not  climb  into  the  purple  car  and  tell  Bob 


254      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

to  drive  her  to  "  the  house."  She  walked  past  it  with- 
out even  noticing  that  it  stood  there,  an  aristocrat 
among  the  other  machines  parked  behind  the  great 
studio  that  looked  like  a  long,  low  warehouse.  She 
knew  the  straightest,  shortest  trail  to  the  corrals,  you 
may  be  sure  of  that.     She  took  that  trail. 

Pard  was  standing  in  a  far  corner  under  a  shed, 
switching  his  tail  methodically  at  the  October  crop  of 
flies.  His  head  lay  over  the  neck  of  a  scrawny  little 
buckskin,  for  which  he  had  formed  a  sudden  and  violent 
attachment,  and  his  eyes  were  half  closed  while  he 
drowsed  in  lazy  content.  Pard  was  not  worrying  about 
anything.  He  looked  so  luxuriously  happy  that  Jean 
had  not  the  heart  to  disturb  him,  even  with  her  com- 
fort-seeking caresses.  She  leaned  her  elbows*  on  the 
corral  gate  and  watched  him  awhile.  She  asked  a  bash- 
ful, gnim-chewing  youth  if  he  could  tell  her  where  to 
find  Lite  Avery.  But  the  youth  seemed  never  to  have 
heard  of  Lite  Avery,  and  Jean  was  too  miserable  to  ex- 
plain and  describe  Lite,  and  insist  upon  seeing  him. 
She  walked  over  to  the  nearest  car-line  and  caught  the 
next  street  car  for  the  city.  Part  of  her  chief's  orders 
at  least  she  would  obey.  She  would  go  down  to  the 
Victoria  and  see  "  Jean,  of  the  Lazy  A,"  but  she  was 
not  going  because  of  any  impulse  of  vanity,  or  to  soothe 
her  soul  with  the  applause  of  strangers.     She  wanted 


IN   LOS    ANGELES  255 

to  see  the  ranch  again.  She  wanted  to  see  the  dear, 
familiar  line  of  the  old  bluff  that  framed  the  coulee,  and 
ride  again  with  Lite  through  those  wild  places  they  had 
chosen  for  the  pictures.  She  wanted  to  lose  herself  for 
a  little  while  among  the  hills  that  were  home. 


CHAPTER  XX 

CHANCE    TAKES    A    HAND 

A  HUGE  pipe  organ  was  filling  the  theater  with  a 
vast  undertone  that  was  like  the  whispering  surge 
of  a  great  wind.  Jean  went  into  the  soft  twilight  and 
sat  down,  feeling  that  she  had  shut  herself  away  from 
the  harsh,  horrible  world  that  held  so  much  of  suffering. 
She  sighed  and  leaned  her  head  back  against  the  cur- 
tained enclosure  of  the  logos,  and  closed  her  eyes  and 
listened  to  the  big,  sweeping  harmonies  that  were  yet  so 
subdued. 

Down  next  the  river,  in  a  sheltered  little  coulee,  there 
was  a  group  of  great  bull  pines.  Sometimes  she  had 
gone  there  and  leaned  against  a  tree  trunk,  and  had  shut 
her  eyes  and  listened  to  the  vast  symphony  which  the 
wind  and  the  water  played  together.  She  forgot  that 
she  had  come  to  see  a  picture  which  she  had  helped  to 
create.  She  held  her  eyes  shut  and  listened;  and  that 
horror  of  high  walls  and  iron  bars  that  had  haunted  her 
for  days,  and  the  aged,  broken  man  who  was  her  father, 


CHANCE    TAKES    A   HAND     257 

dimmed  and  faded  and  was  temporarily  erased;  the 
lightness  of  her  lips  eased  a  little ;  the  tenseness  relaxed 
from  her  face,  as  it  does  from  one  who  sleeps. 

But  the  music  changed,  and  her  mood  changed  with 
it.  She  did  not  know  that  this  was  because  the  story 
pictured  upon  the  screen  had  changed,  but  she  sat  up 
straight  and  opened  her  eyes,  and  felt  almost  as  though 
she  had  just  awakened  from  a  vivid  dream. 

A  Mexican  series  of  educational  pictures  were  be- 
ing shown.  Jean  looked,  and  leaned  forward  with  a 
little  gasp.  But  even  as  she  fixed  her  eyes  and  startled 
attention  upon  it,  that  scene  was  gone,  and  she  was 
reading  mechanically  of  refugees  fleeing  to  the  border 
line. 

She  must  have  been  asleep,  she  told  herself,  and  had 
gotten  things  mixed  up  in  her  dreams.  She  shook  her- 
self mentally  and  remembered  that  she  ought  to  take 
off  her  hat ;  and  she  tried  to  ^x  her  mind  upon  the  pic- 
tures. Perhaps  she  had  been  mistaken;  perhaps  she 
had  not  seen  what  she  believed  she  had  seen.  But  — 
what  if  it  were  true  ?  What  if  she  had  really  seen  and 
not  imagined  it?  It  couldn't  be  true,  she  kept  telling 
herself ;  of  course,  it  couldn't  be  true !  Still,  her  mind 
clung  to  that  instant  when  she  had  first  opened  her  eyes, 
and  very  little  of  what  she  saw  afterwards  reached  her 
brain  at  all. 


258      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

Then  she  had,  for  the  first  time  in  her  life,  the  strange 
experience  of  seeing  herself  as  others  saw  her.  The 
screen  announcement  and  expectant  stir  that  greeted  it 
caught  her  attention,  and  pulled  her  back  from  the  whirl 
of  conjecture  into  which  she  had  been  plunged.  She 
watched,  and  she  saw  herself  ride  up  to  the  foreground 
on  Pard.  She  saw  herself  look  straight  out  at  the 
audience  with  that  peculiar  little  easing  of  the  lips  and 
the  lightening  of  the  eyes  which  was  just  the  infectious 
beginning  of  a  smile.  Involuntarily  she  smiled  back 
at  her  pictured  self,  just  as  every  one  else  was  smiling 
back.  For  that,  you  must  know,  was  what  had  first 
endeared  her  so  to  the  public;  the  human  quality  that 
compelled  instinctive  response  from  those  who  looked  at 
her.  So  Jean  in  the  loge  smiled  at  Jean  on  the  screen. 
Then  Lite  —  dear,  silent,  long-legged  Lite !  —  came  lo- 
ping up,  and  pushed  back  his  hat  with  the  gesture  that 
she  knew  so  well,  and  spoke  to  her  and  smiled;  and  a 
lump  filled  the  throat  of  Jean  in  the  loge,  though  she 
could  not  have  told  why.  Then  Jean  on  the  screen 
turned  and  went  riding  with  Lite  back  down  the  trail, 
with  her  hat  tilted  over  one  eye  because  of  the  sun,  and 
with  one  foot  swinging  free  of  the  stirrup  in  that  abso- 
lute unconsciousness  of  pose  that  had  first  caught  the  at- 
tention of  Eobert  Grant  Bums  and  his  camera  man. 
Jean  in  the  loge  heard  the  ripple  of  applause  among  the 


CHANCE    TAKES    A   HAND     259 

audience  and  responded  to  it  with  a  perfectly  human 
thrill. 

Presently  she  was  back  at  the  Lazy  A,  living  again  the 
scenes  which  she  herself  had  created.  This  was  the 
fourth  or  fifth  picture, —  she  did  not  at  the  moment  re- 
member just  which.  At  any  rate,  it  had  in  it  that  in- 
cident when  she  had  first  met  the  picture-people  in  the 
hills  and  mistaken  Gil  Huntley  and  the  other  boys  for 
real  rustlers  stealing  her  uncle's  cattle.  You  will  re- 
member that  Robert  Grant  Burns  had  told  Pete  to 
take  all  of  that  encounter,  and  he  had  later  told  Jean  to 
write  her  scenario  so  as  to  include  that  incident. 

Jean  blushed  when  she  saw  herself  ride  up  to  those 
three  and  "  throw  down  on  them  "  with  her  gun.  She 
had  been  terribly  chagrined  over  that  performance! 
But  now  it  looked  awfully  real,  she  told  herself  with  a 
little  glow  of  pride.  Poor  old  Gil!  They  hadn't 
caught  her  roping  him,  anyway,  and  she  was  glad  of 
that.  He  would  have  looked  absurd,  and  those  people 
would  have  laughed  at  him.  She  watched  how  she  had 
driven  the  cattle  back  up  the  coulee,  with  little  rushes 
up  the  bank  to  head  off  an  unruly  cow  that  had  ideas  of 
her  own  about  the  direction  in  which  she  would  travel. 
She  loved  Pard,  for  the  way  he  tossed  his  head  and 
whirled  the  cricket  in  his  bit  with  his  tongue,  and 
obeyed  the  slightest  touch  on  the  rein.     The  audience 


260      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY    A 

applauded  that  cattle  drive;  and  Jean  was  almost  be- 
trayed into  applauding  it  herself. 

Later  there  was  a  scene  where  she  had  helped  Lite 
Avery  and  Lee  Milligan  round  up  a  bunch  of  cattle  and 
cut  out  three  or  four,  which  were  to  be  sold  to  a  butcher 
for  money  to  take  her  mother  to  the  doctor.  Lite  rode 
close  to  the  camera  and  looked  straight  at  her,  and  Jean 
bit  her  lips  sharply  as  tears  stung  her  lashes  for  some 
inexplicable  reason.  Dear  old  Lite !  Every  line  in  his 
face  she  knew,  every  varying,  vagrant  expression,  every 
little  twitch  of  his  lips  and  eyelids  that  meant  so  much 
to  those  who  knew  him  well  enough  to  read  his  face. 
Jean's  eyes  softened,  cleared,  and  while  she  looked,  her 
lips  parted  a  little,  and  she  did  not  know  that  she  was 
smiling. 

She  was  thinking  of  the  day,  not  long  ago,  when  she 
had  seen  a  bird  fly  into  the  loft  over  the  store-house, 
and  she  had  climbed  in  a  spirit  of  idle  curiosity  to  see 
what  the  bird  wanted  there.  She  had  found  Lite's  bed 
neatly  smoothed  for  the  day,  the  pillow  placed  so  that, 
lying  there,  he  could  look  out  through  the  opening  and 
see  the  house  and  the  path  that  led  to  it.  There  was 
the  faint  aroma  of  tobacco  about  the  place.  Jean  had 
known  at  once  just  why  that  bed  was  there,  and  almost 
she  knew  how  long  it  had  been  there.  She  had  never 
once  hinted  that  she  knew;  and  Lite  would  never  tell 


CHANCE    TAKES    A   HAND     261 

her,  by  look  or  word,  that  he  was  watching  her  wel- 
fare. 

Here  came  Gil,  dashing  up  to  the  brow  of  the  hill, 
dismounting  and  creeping  behind  a  rock,  that  he  might 
watch  them  working  with  the  cattle  in  the  valley  below. 
Jean  met  his  pictured  approach  with  a  little  smile  of 
welcome.  That  was  the  scene  where  she  told  him  he  got 
off  the  horse  like  a  sack  of  oats,  and  had  shown  him  how 
to  swing  down  lightly  and  with  a  perfect  balance,  in- 
stead of  coming  to  the  earth  with  a  thud  of  his  feet. 
Gil  had  taken  it  all  in  good  faith ;  the  camera  proved  now 
how  well  he  had  followed  her  instructions.  And  after- 
wards, while  the  assistant  camera-man  (with  whom  Jean 
never  had  felt  acquainted)  shouldered  the  camera  and 
tripod,  and  they  all  tramped  down  the  hill  to  another 
location,  there  had  been  a  little  scene  iij  the  shade 
of  that  rock,  between  Jean  and  the  star  villain.  She 
blushed  a  little  and  wondered  if  Gil  remembered  that 
tentative  love-making  scene  which  Burns  had  uncon- 
sciously cut  short  with  a  bellowing  order  to  rehearse  the 
next  scene. 

It  was  wonderful,  it  was  fascinating  to  sit  there  and 
see  those  days  of  hard,  absorbing  work  relived  in  the 
story  she  had  created.  Jean  lost  herself  in  watching 
how  Jean  of  the  Lazy  A  came  and  went  and  lived  her 
life  bravely  in  the  midst  of  so  much  that  was  hard. 


262      JEAN   OF    THE    LAZY   A 

Jean  in  the  loge  remembered  how  Bums  had  yelled, 
"  Smile  when  you  come  up ;  look  light-hearted !  And 
then  let  your  face  change  gradually,  while  you  listen  to 
your  mother  crying  in  there.  There'll  be  a  cut-back  to 
show  her  down  on  her  knees  crying  before  Bob's  chair. 
Let  that  tired,  worried  look  come  into  your  face, —  the 
load's  dropping  on  to  your  shoulders  again, —  that  kind 
of  dope.  Get  me  ? "  Jean  in  the  loge  remembered 
how  she  had  been  told  to  do  this  deliberately,  just  out  of 
her  imagination.  And  then  she  saw  how  Jean  on  the 
screen  came  whistling  up  to  the  house,  swinging  her 
quirt  by  its  loop  and  with  a  spring  in  her  walk,  and 
making  you  feel  that  it  was  a  beautiful  day  and  that 
all  the  meadow  larks  were  singing,  and  that  she  had 
just  had  a  gallop  on  Pard  that  made  her  forget  that 
she  ever  looked  trouble  in  the  face. 

Then  Jean  in  the  loge  looked  and  saw  screen-Jean's 
mother  kneeling  before  Bob's  chair  and  sobbing  so 
that  her  shoulders  shook.  She  looked  and  saw  screen- 
Jean  stop  whistling  and  swinging  her  quirt;  saw  her 
stand  still  in  the  path  and  listen ;  saw  the  smile  fade  out 
of  her  eyes.  Jean  in  the  loge  thought  suddenly  of  that 
moment  when  she  had  looked  at  dad  coming  in  where 
she  waited,  and  swallowed  a  lump  in  her  throat.  A 
woman  near  her  gave  a  little  stifled  sob  of  sympathy 
when  screen-Jean  turned  and  went  softly  around  the 


CHANCE    TAKES    A   HAND     263 

corner  of  the  house  with  all  the  light  gone  from  her  face 
and  all  the  spring  gone  out  of  her  walk. 

Jean  in  the  loge  gave  a  sigh  of  relaxed  tension  and 
looked  around  her.  The  seats  were  nearly  all  full,  and 
every  one  was  gazing  fixedly  forward,  lost  in  the  pic- 
tured story  of  Jean  on  the  screen.  So  that  was  what  all 
those  made-to-order  smiles  and  frowns  meant!  Jean 
had  done  them  at  Bums'  command,  because  she  had  seen 
that  the  others  simulated  different  emotions  whenever 
he  told  them  to.  She  knew,  furthermore,  that  she  had 
done  them  remarkably  well;  so  well  that  people  re- 
sponded to  every  emotion  she  presented  to  them.  She 
was  surprised  at  the  vividness  of  every  one  of  those  cut- 
and-dried  scenes.  They  imposed  upon  her,  even,  after 
all  the  work  and  fussing  she  had  gone  through  to  get 
them  to  Burns'  liking.  And  there,  in  the  cool  gloom  of 
the  Victoria,  Jean  for  the  first  time  realized  to  the  full 
the  true  ability  of  Robert  Grant  Burns.  For  the  first 
time  she  really  appreciated  him  and  respected  him,  and 
was  grateful  to  him  for  what  he  had  taught  her  to  do. 

Her  mood  changed  abruptly  when  the  Jean  picture 
ended.  The  music  changed  to  the  strain  that  had  filled 
the  great  place  when  she  entered,  nearly  an  hour  be- 
fore. Jean  sat  up  straight  again  and  waited,  alert,  im- 
patient, anxious  to  miss  no  smallest  part  of  that  picture 
which  had  startled  her  so  when  she  had  first  looked  at 


264      JEAN   OF    THE    LAZY   A 

the  screen.  If  the  thing  was  true  which  she  half  be- 
lieved —  if  it  were  true !  So  she  stared  with  narrowed 
lids,  intent,  watchful,  her  whole  mind  concentrated  upon 
what  she  should  presently  see. 

"  Warring  Mexico !  "  That  was  the  name  of  it ;  a 
Lubin  special  release,  of  the  kind  technically  called 
"  educational."  Jean  held  her  breath,  waiting  for  the 
scene  that  might  mean  so  much  to  her.  There:  this 
must  be  it,  she  thought  with  a  flush  of  inner  excitement. 
This  surely  must  be  the  one : 

"  NoGAXES,  Mexico.  Federal  Tboops  of  General 
kosteelisky,  with  american  soldiees  of  fortune 
Serving  on  Staff  of  Koted  General." 

Jean  had  it  stamped  indelibly  upon  her  brain.  She 
waited,  with  a  quick  intake  of  breath  when  the  picture 
stood  out  with  a  sudden  clarity  before  her  eyes. 

A  "  close-up  "  group  of  officers  and  men, —  and  some 
of  the  men  Americans  in  face,  dress,  and  manner.  But 
it  was  one  man,  and  one  only,  at  whom  she  looked.  Tall 
he  was,  and  square-shouldered  and  lean;  with  his  hat 
set  far  back  on  his  head  and  a  half  smile  curling  his  lips, 
and  his  eyes  looking  straight  into  the  camera.  Standing 
there  with  his  weight  all  on  one  foot,  in  that  attitude 
which  cowboys  call  "  hipshot."  Art  Osgood !  She  was 
sure  of  it!  Her  hands  clenched  in  her  lap.  Art  Os- 
good, at  Nogales,  Mexico.     Serving  on  the  staff  of  Gen- 


CHANCE    TAKES    A   HAND     265 

eral  Kosterlisky.  Was  the  man  mad,  to  stand  there 
publicly  before  the  merciless,  revealing  eye  of  a  mo- 
tion-picture camera?  Or  did  his  vanity  blind  him  to 
the  risk  he  was  taking  ? 

The  man  at  whom  she  sAt  glaring  glanced  sidewise  at 
some  person  unseen;  and  Jean  knew  that  glance,  that 
turn  of  the  head.  He  smiled  anew  and  lifted  his 
American-made  Stetson  a  few  inches  above  his  head  and 
held  it  so  in  salute.  Just  so  had  he  lifted  and  held  his 
hat  high  one  day,  when  she  had  turned  and  ridden  away 
from  him  down  the  trail.  Jean  caught  herself  just  as 
her  lips  opened  to  call  out  to  him  in  recognition  and 
sharp  reproach.  He  turned  and  walked  away  to  where 
the  troopers  were  massed  in  the  background.  It  was 
thus  that  she  had  first  glimpsed  him  for  one  instant  be- 
fore the  scene  ended;  it  was  just  as  he  turned  his  face 
away  that  she  had  opened  her  eyes,  and  thought  it  was 
Art  Osgood  who  was  walking  away  from  the  camera. 

She  waited  a  minute,  staring  abstractedly  at  the 
refugees  who  were  presented  next.  She  wished  that  she 
knew  w^hen  the  picture  had  been  taken, —  how  long  ago. 
Her  experience  with  motion-picture  making,  her  listen- 
ing to  the  shop-talk  of  the  company,  had  taught  her 
much;  she  knew  that  sometimes  weeks  elapse  between 
the  camera^s  work  and  the  actual  projection  of  a  picture 
upon  the  theater  screens.     Still,  this  was,  in  a  sense,  a 


266      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

news  release,  and  therefore  in  all  probability  hurried 
to  the  public.  Art  Osgood  might  still  be  at  Xogales, 
Mexico,  wherever  that  was.  He  might ;  and  Jean  made 
up  her  mind  and  laid  her  plans  while  she  sat  there  pin- 
ning on  her  hat. 

She  got  up  quietly  and  slipped  out.  She  was  going 
to  Nogales,  Mexico,  wherever  that  was.  She  was  going 
to  get  Art  Osgood,  and  she  didn't  care  whether  she  had 
to  fight  her  way  clear  through  "  Warring  Mexico. '^ 
She  would  find  him  and  get  him  and  bring  him  back. 

In  the  lobby,  while  she  paused  with  a  truly  feminine 
"  instinct  to  tip  her  hat  this  way  and  that  before  the 
mirror,  and  give  her  hair  a  tentative  pat  or  two  at  the 
back,  the  grinning  face  of  Lite  Avery  in  his  gray  Stet- 
son appeared  like  an  apparition  before  her  eyes.  She 
turned  quickly. 

"  Why,  Lite !  "  she  said,  a  little  startled. 

"  Why,  Jean !  "  he  mimicked,  in  the  bantering  voice 
that  was  like  home  to  her.  "  Don't  rush  oif ;  haven't 
seen  you  to-day.  Wait  till  I  get  you  a  ticket,  and  then 
you  come  back  and  help  me  admire  ourselves.  I  came 
down  on  a  long  lope  when  somebody  said  you  caught  a 
street  car  headed  this  way.  Thought  maybe  I'd  run 
across  you  here.  Knew  you  couldn't  stay  away  much 
longer  from  seeing  how  you  look.  Ain't  too  proud  to 
sit  alongside  a  rough-neck  puncher,  are  you  ?  " 


CHANCE    TAKES    A   HAND     267 

Jean  looked  at  him  understandingly.  Lite's  exuber- 
ance was  unusual ;  but  she  knew,  as  well  as  though  he 
had  told  her,  that  he  had  been  lonesome  in  this  strange 
city,  and  that  he  was  overjoyed  at  the  sight  of  her,  who 
was  his  friend.  She  unpinned  her  hat  which  she  had 
been  at  some  pains  to  adjust  at  the  exact  angle  decreed 
by  fashion. 

"  Yes,  I'll  go  back  with  you,"  she  drawled.  ^^  I  want 
to  see  how  you  like  the  sight  of  yourself  just  as  you  are. 
It  —  it's  good  for  one,  after  the  first  shock  wears  off." 
She  would  not  say  a  word  about  that  Mexican  picture, 
she  thought;  but  she  wanted  to  see  if  Lite  also  would 
recognize  Art  Osgood,  and  feel  as  sure  of  his  identity  as 
she  had  felt.  That  would  make  her  doubly  sure  of  her- 
self. She  could  do  what  she  meant  to  do  without  any 
misgivings  whatsoever.  She  could  afford  to  wait  a  little 
while  and  have  the  pleasure  of  Lite's  presence  beside 
her.  Lite  was  homesick  and  lonesome ;  —  she  felt  it  in 
every  tone  and  in  every  look ;  —  almost  as  homesick 
and  lonesome  as  she  was  herself.  She  would  not  hurt 
him  by  going  off  and  leaving  him  alone,  even  if  she  had 
not  wanted  to  be  with  him  and  to  watch  the  effect  that 
Mexican  picture  would  have  upon  him.  Lite  believed 
Art  Osgood  was  in  the  Klondyke.  She  would  wait  and 
see  what  he  believed  after  he  had  seen  that  Nogales  pic- 
ture. 


268      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

She  waited.  She  had  missed  Lite  in  the  last  day  or 
so;  she  had  seemed  almost  as  far  away  from  him  as 
from  the  Lazy  A.  But  all  the  while  she  talked  to  him 
in  whispers  when  he  had  wanted  to  discuss  the  Jean 
picture,  she  was  waiting,  just  waiting,  for  that  Nogales 
picture. 

When  it  came  at  last,  Jean  turned  her  head  and 
watched  Lite.  And  Lite  gave  a  real  start  and  said 
something  under  his  breath,  and  plucked  at  her  sleeve 
afterwards  to  attract  her  attention. 

"  Look  —  quick !  That  fellow  standing  there  with 
his  arms  folded.     Skin  me  alive  if  it  isn't  Art  Osgood !  " 

"  Are  you  sure  ?  "     Jean  studied  him. 

"  Sure  ?  Where' re  your  eyes  ?  Look  at  him !  It 
sure  ain't  anybody  else,  Jean.  Now,  what  do  you 
reckon  he's  doing  down  in  Mexico  ?  " 


CHAPTER  XXI 

JEAN"    BELIEVES    THAT    SHE    TAKES    MATTERS    INTO 
HEK    OWN    HANDS       . 

AFTER  all,  Jean  did  not  have  to  fight  her  way  clear 
through  "  Warring  Mexico ''  and  back  again,  in 
order  to  reach  Nogales.  She  let  Lite  take  her  to  the 
snug  little  apartment  which  she  was  to  share  with  Muriel 
and  her  mother,  and  she  fancied  that  she  had  been  very 
crafty  and  very  natural  in  her  manner  all  the  while  he 
was  with  her^  and  that  Lite  did  not  dream  of  what  she 
had  in  her  mind  to  do.  At  any  rate,  she  watched  him 
stalk  away  on  his  high-heeled  riding-boots,  and  she 
thought  that  his  mind  was  perfectly  at  ease.  (Jean,  I 
fiear,  never  will  understand  Lite  half  as  well  as  Lite 
has  always  understood  Jean.) 

She  caught  the  next  down-town  car  and  went  straight 
to  the  information  bureau  of  the  Southern  Pacific,  estab- 
lished for  the  convenience  of  the  public  and  the  sanity  of 
employees  who  have  something  to  do  besides  answer  fool- 
ish questions. 

She  found  a  young  man  there  who  was  not  averse  to 
talking  at  length  with  a  young  woman  who  was  dressed 


270      JEAN   OF    THE    LAZY   A 

trimly  in  a  street  suit  of  the  latest  fashion,  and  who  had 
a  most  entrancing,  soft  drawl  to  her  voice  and  a  most 
fascinating  way  of  looking  at  one.  This  young  man 
appeared  to  know  a  great  deal,  and  to  be  almost  eager 
to  pass  along  his  wisdom.  He  knew  all  about  Nogales, 
Mexico,  for  instance,  and  just  what  train  would  next  de- 
part in  that  general  direction,  and  how  much  it  would 
cost,  and  how  long  she  would  have  to  wait  in  Tucson  for 
the  once-a-day  train  to  Nogales,  and  when  she  might 
logically  expect  to  arrive  in  that  squatty  little  town  that 
might  be  said  to  be  really  and  truly  divided  against  it- 
self.    Here  the  nice  young  man  became  facetious. 

"  Bible  tells  us  a  city  divided  against  itself  cannot 
stand,"  he  informed  Jean  quite  gratuitously.  "  Well, 
maybe  that's  straight  goods,  too.  But  Nogales  is  cut 
right  through  at  the  waist  line  with  the  international 
boundary  line.  United  States  customhouse  on  one 
corner  of  the  street,  Mexican  customhouse  in  talking 
distance  on  the  other  corner.  Great  place  for  holdups, 
that!  "  This  was  a  joke,  and  Jean  smiled  obligingly. 
"  First  the  United  States  holds  you  up,  and  then  the 
Mexicans.  You  get  it  coming  and  going.  Well, 
ISTogales  don't  have  to  stand.  It  squats.  It's  adobe 
mostly." 

Jean  was  interested,  and  she  did  not  discourage  the 
nice  young  man.     She  let  him  say  all  he  could  think  of 


INTO    HER    OWN    HANDS     271 

on  the  subject  of  !Nogales  and  the  Federal  troops  sta- 
tioned there,  and  on  warring  Mexico  generally.  When 
she  left  him,  she  felt  as  if  she  knew  a  great  deal  about 
the  end  of  her  journey.  So  she  smiled  and  thanked  the 
nice  young  man  in  that  soft  drawl  that  lingered  pleas- 
antly in  his  memory,  and  went  over  to  another  window 
and  bought  a  ticket  to  ]N"ogales.  She  moved  farther 
along  to  another  Avindow  and  secured  a  Pullman  ticket 
which  gave  her  lower  five  in  car  four  for  her  com- 
fort. 

With  an  impulse  of  wanting  to  let  her  Uncle  Carl 
know  that  she  was  not  forgetting  her  mission,  she  sent 
him  this  laconic  telegram : 

Have  located  Art.     Will  bring  him  back  with  me. 

Jean. 

After  that,  she  went  home  and  packed  a  suit-case  and 
her  six-shooter  and  belt.  She  did  not,  after  all,  know 
just  what  might  happen  in  J^ogales,  Mexico,  but  she 
meant  to  bring  back  Art  Osgood  if  he  were  to  be  found 
alive ;  hence  the  six-shooter. 

That  evening  she  told  Muriel  that  she  was  going  to 
run  away  and  have  her  vacation  —  her  "  vacation  " 
hunting  down  and  capturing  a  murderer  who  had  taken 
refuge  in  the  Mexican  army !  —  and  that  she  would 
write  when  she  knew  just  where  she  would  stop.     Then 


272      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

she  went  away  alone  in  a  taxi  to  the  depot,  and  started 
on  her  journey  with  a  six-shooter  jostling  a  box  of 
chocolates  in  her  suit-case,  and  with  her  heart  almost 
light  again,  now  that  she  was  at  last  following  a  clue  that 
promised  something  at  the  other  end. 

It  was  all  just  as  the  nice  young  man  had  told  her. 
Jean  arrived  in  Tucson,  and  she  left  on  time,  on  the 
once-a-day  train  to  Nogales. 

Lite  also  arrived  in  Tucson  on  time,  though  Jean  did 
not  see  him,  since  he  descended  from  the  chair  car  with 
some  caution  just  as  she  went  into  the  depot.  He  did 
not  depart  on  time  as  it  happened ;  he  was  thirsty,  and 
he  went  off  to  find  something  wetter  than  water  to  drink, 
and  while  he  was  gone  the  once-a-day  train  also  went 
off  through  the  desert.  Lite  saw  the  last  pair  of  wheels 
it  owned  go  clipping  over  the  switch,  and  he  stood  in  the 
middle  of  the  track  and  swore.  Then  he  went  to  the 
telegraph  office  and  found  out  that  a  freight  left  for 
l^ogales  in  ten  minutes.  He  hunted  up  the  conductor 
and  did  things  to  his  bank  roll,  and  afterwards  climbed 
into  the  caboose  on  the  sidetrack.  Lite  has  been  so 
careful  to  keep  in  the  background,  through  all  these 
chapters,  that  it  seems  a  shame  to  tell  on  him  now.  But 
I  am  going  to  say  that,  little  as  Jean  suspected  it,  he 
had  been  quite  as  interested  in  finding  Art  Osgood  as 
had  she  herself.     When  he  saw  her  pass  through  the 


INTO    HER    OWN    HANDS     273 

gate  to  the  train,  in  Los  Angeles,  that  was  his  first  in- 
timation that  she  was  going  to  ISTogales  ]  so  he  had  stayed 
in  the  chair  car  out  of  sight.  But  it  just  shows  how 
great  minds  run  in  the  same  channel ;  and  how,  without 
suspecting  one  another,  these  two  started  at  the  same 
time  upon  the  same  quest. 

Jean  stared  out  over  the  barrenness  that  was  not  like 
the  barrenness  of  Montana,  and  tried  not  to  think  that 
perhaps  Art  Osgood  had  by  this  time  drifted  on  into 
obscurity.  Still,  if  he  had  drifted  on,  surely  she  could 
trace  him,  since  he  had  been  serving  on  the  staff  of  a 
general  and  should  therefore  be  pretty  well  known. 
What  she  really  hated  most  to  think  of  was  the  possibil- 
ity that  he  might  have  been  killed.  They  did  get  killed, 
sometimes,  down  there  where  there  was  so  much  fighting 
going  on  all  the  time. 

When  the  shadows  of  the  giant  cactus  stretched 
mutilated  hands  across  the  desert  sand,  and  she  believed 
that  N^ogales  was  near,  Jean  carried  her  suit-case  to  the 
cramped  dressing-room  and  took  out  her  six-shooter  and 
buckled  it  around  her.  Then  she  pulled  her  coat  down 
over  it  with  a  good  deal  of  twisting  and  turning  be- 
fore the  dirty  mirror  to  see  that  it  looked  all  right,  and 
not  in  the  least  as  though  a  perfect  lady  was  packing  a 
gun. 

She  went  back  and  dipped  fastidious  fingers  into  the 


274      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

box  of  chocolates,  and  settled  herself  to  nibble  candy  and 
wait  for  what  might  come.  She  felt  very  calm  and  self- 
possessed  and  sure  of  herself.  Her  only  fear  was  that 
Art  Osgood  might  have  been  killed,  and  his  lips  closed 
for  all  time.  So  they  rattled  away  through  the  barren- 
ness and  drew  near  to  Nogales. 

Casa  del  Sonora,  whither  she  went,  was  an  old,  two- 
story  structure  of  the  truly  Spanish  type,  and  it  was 
kept  by  a  huge,  blubbery  creature  with  piggish  eyes  and 
a  bloated,  purple  countenance  and  the  palsy.  As  much 
of  him  as  appeared  to  be  human  appeared  to  be  Irish ; 
and  Jean,  after  the  first  qualm  of  repulsion,  when  she 
faced  him  over  the  hotel  register,  detected  a  certain 
kindly  solicitude  in  his  manner,  and  was  reassured. 

So  far,  everything  had  run  smoothly,  like  a  well- 
staged  play.  Absurdly  simple,  utterly  devoid  of  any 
element  of  danger,  any  vexatious  obstacle  to  the  imme- 
diate achievement  of  her  purpose!  But  Jean  was  not 
thrown  off  her  guard  because  of  the  smoothness  of  the 
trail. 

The  trip  from  Tucson  had  been  terribly  tiresome ;  she 
was  weary  in  every  fibre,  it  seemed  to  her.  But  for  all 
that  she  intended,  sometime  that  evening,  to  meet  Art 
Osgood  if  he  were  in  town.  She  intended  to  take  him 
with  her  on  the  train  that  left  the  next  morning.  She 
thought  it  would  be  a  good  idea  to  rest  now,  and  to 


INTO    HER   OWN    HANDS     275 

proceed  deliberately,  lest  she  frustrate  all  her  plans  by 
over-eagerness. 

Perhaps  she  slept  a  little  while  she  lay  upon  the  bed 
and  schooled  herself  to  calmness.  A  band,  somewhere, 
playing  a  pulsing  Spanish  air,  brought  her  to  her  feet. 
She  went  to  the  window  and  looked  out,  and  saw  that 
the  street  lay  cool  and  sunless  with  the  coming  of  dusk. 

From  the  American  customhouse  just  on  the  opposite 
corner  came  Lite  Avery,  stalking  leisurely  along  in  his 
high-heeled  riding-boots.  Jean  drew  back  with  a  little 
flutter  of  the  pulse  and  watched  him,  wondering  how  he 
came  to  be  in  Nogales.  She  had  last  seen  him  boarding 
a  car  that  would  take  him  out  to  the  Great  Western 
Studio;  and  now,  here  he  was,  sauntering  across  the 
street  as  if  he  lived  here.  It  was  like  finding  his  bed 
up  in  the  loft  and  knowing  all  at  once  that  he  had  been 
keeping  watch  all  the  while,  thinking  of  her  welfare  and 
never  giving  her  the  least  hint  of  it.  That  at  least  was 
understandable.  But  to  her  there  was  something  un- 
canny about  his  being  here  in  Nogales.  When  he  was 
gone,  she  stepped  out  through  the  open  window  to  the 
veranda  that  ran  the  whole  length  of  the  hotel,  and 
looked  across  the  street  into  Mexico. 

She  was,  she  decided  critically,  about  fifteen  feet 
from  the  boundary  line.  Just  across  the  street  fluttered 
the  Mexican  flag  from  the  Mexican  customhouse.     A 


276      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

Mexican  guard  lounged  against  the  wall,  his  swarthy 
face  mask-like  in  its  calm.  While  she  leaned  over  the 
railing  and  stared  curiously  at  that  part  of  the  street 
which  was  another  country,  from  the  hills  away  to  the 
west,  where  were  camped  soldiers, —  the  American 
soldiers, —  who  prevented  the  war  from  slopping  over  the 
line  now  and  then  into  Arizona,  came  the  clear 
notes  of  a  bugle  held  close-pressed  against  the  lips  of  a 
United  States  soldier  in  snug-fitting  khaki.  The  boom 
of  the  sundown  salute  followed  immediately  after.  In 
the  street  below  her,  Mexicans  and  Americans  mingled 
amiably  and  sauntered  here  and  there,  killing  time  dur- 
ing that  bored  interval  between  eating  and  the  evening's 
amusement. 

Just  beyond  the  Mexican  boundary,  the  door  of  a 
long,  adobe  cantina  was  flung  open,  and  a  group  of  men 
came  out  and  paused  as  if  they  were  wondering  what 
they  should  do  next,  and  where  they  should  go.  Jean 
looked  them  over  curiously.  Mexicans  they  were  not, 
though  they  had  some  of  the  dress  which  belonged  on 
that  side  of  the  boundary. 

Americans  they  were;  one  knew  by  the  set  of  their 
shoulders,  by  the  little  traits  of  race  which  have  noth- 
ing to  do  with  complexion  or  speech. 

Jean  caught  her  breath  and  leaned  forward.  There 
was  Art  Osgood,  standing  with  his  back  tov/ard  her  and 


INTO    HER    OWN    HANDS     277 

with  one  palm  spread  upon  his  hip  in  the  attitude  she 
knew  so  well.  If  only  he  would  turn !  Should  she  run 
down  the  stairs  and  go  over  there  and  march  him  across 
the  line  at  the  muzzle  of  her  revolver?  The  idea  re- 
pelled her,  now  that  she  had  actually  come  to  the  point 
of  action. 

Jean,  now  that  the  crisis  had  arrived,  used  her 
woman's  wile,  rather  than  the  harsher  but  perhaps  less 
effective  weapons  of  a  man. 

^^  Oh,  Art ! ''  she  called,  just  exactly  as  she  would  have 
called  to  him  on  the  range,  in  Montana.  "  Hello, 
Art!'' 

Art  Osgood  wheeled  and  sent  a  startled,  seeking 
glance  up  at  the  veranda ;  saw  her  and  knew  who  it  was 
that  had  called  him,  and  lifted  his  hat  in  the  gesture 
that  she  knew  so  well.  Jean's  fingers  were  close  to  her 
gun,  though  she  was  not  conscious  of  it,  or  of  the 
strained,  tense  muscles  that  waited  the  next  move. 

Art,  contrary  to  her  expectations,  did  the  most  natural 
thing  in  the  world.  He  grinned  and  came  hurrying  to- 
ward her  with  the  long,  eager  steps  of  one  who  goes  to 
greet  a  friend  after  an  absence  that  makes  of  that  meet- 
ing an  event.  Jean  watched  him  cross  the  street.  She 
waited,  dazed  by  the  instant  success  of  her  ruse,  while 
he  disappeared  under  the  veranda.  She  heard  his  feet 
upon  the  stairs.     She  heard  him  come  striding  down  the 


278      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

hall  to  the  glass-paneled  door.     She  saw  him  coming 
toward  her,  still  grinning  in  his  joy  at  the  meeting. 

"  Jean  Douglas !  By  all  that's  lucky !  "  he  was  ex- 
claiming. "  Where  in  the  world  did  you  light  down 
from  ? ''  He  came  to  a  stop  directly  in  front  of  her, 
and  held  out  his  hand  in  unsuspecting  friendship.. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

JEAN"    MEETS    ONE    CKISIS    AND   CONFRONTS   ANOTHER 

^^T  If  TELL,  say!  This  is  like  seeing  you  walk  out 
V  T  of  that  picture  that's  running  at  the  Teatro 
Palacia.  You  sure  are  making  a  hit  with  those  moving- 
pictures;  made  me  feel  like  I'd  met  somebody  from 
home  to  stroll  in  there  and  see  you  and  Lite  come  rid- 
ing up,  large  as  life.     How  is  Lite,  anyway  ?  " 

If  Art  Osgood  felt  any  embarrassment  over  meeting 
her,  he  certainly  gave  no  sign  of  it.  He  sat  down  on 
the  railing,  pushed  back  his  hat,  and  looked  as  though 
he  was  preparing  for  a  real  soul-feast  of  reminiscent 
gossip.  "  Just  get  in  ?  "  he  asked,  by  way  of  opening 
wider  the  channel  of  talk.  He  lighted  a  cigarette  and 
flipped  the  match  down  into  the  street.  "  I've  been  here 
three  or  four  months.  I'm  part  of  the  Mexican  revolu- 
tion, though  I  don't  reckon  I  look  it.  We  been  keeping 
things  pretty  well  stirred  up,  down  this  way.  You 
looking  for  picture  dope  ?  Lubin  folks  are  copping  all 
kinds  of  good  stuff  here.  You  ain't  with  them,  are 
you  ? " 

Jean  braced  herself  against  slipping  into  easy  conver- 


280      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

sation  with  this  man  who  seemed  so  friendly  and  un- 
suspicious and  so  conscience-free.  Killing  a  man,  she 
thought,  evidently  did  not  seem  to  him  a  matter  of  any 
moment;  perhaps  because  he  had  since  then  become  a 
professional  killer  of  men.  After  planning  exactly  how 
she  should  meet  any  contingency  that  might  arise,  she 
found  herself  baffled.  She  had  not  expected  to  meet 
this  attitude.  She  was  not  prepared  to  meet  it.  She 
had  taken  it  for  granted  that  Art  Osgood  would  shun 
a  meeting ;  that  she  would  have  to  force  him  to  face  her. 
And  here  he  was,  sitting  on  the  porch  rail  and  swing- 
ing one  spurred  and  booted  foot,  smiling  at  her  and  talk- 
ing, in  high  spirits  over  the  meeting  —  or  a  genius  a< 
acting.  She  eyed  him  uncertainly,  trying  to  adjust  her- 
self to  this  emergency. 

Art  came  to  a  pause  and  looked  at  her  inquiringly. 
"  What^s  the  matter  ?  "  he  demanded.  "  You  called  me 
up  here  —  and  I  sure  was  tickled  to  death  to  come,  all 
right !  —  and  now  you  stand  there  looking  like  I  was  a 
kid  that  had  been  caught  whispering,  and  must  be  kept 
after  school.  I  know  the  symptoms,  believe  me! 
You're  sore  about  something  IVe  said.  What,  don't 
you  like  to  have  anybody  talk  about  you  being  a  movie- 
queen  ?  You  sure  are  all  of  that.  You've  got  a  license 
to  be  proud  of  yourself.  Or  maybe  you  didn't  know 
you  was  speaking  to  a  Mexican  soldier,  or  something  like 


JEAN    MEETS    ONE    CRISIS     281 

that.''     He  made  a  move  to  rise.     '^  Ex-cuse  me,  if  I've 
said  something  I  hadn't  ought.     I'll  beat  it,  while  the 


beating's  good." 


u 


]^o,  you  won't.  You'll  stay  right  where  you  are." 
His  frank  acceptance  of  her  hostile  attitude  steadied 
Jean.  "  Do  you  think  I  came  all  the  way  down  here 
just  to  say  hello  ?  " 

"  Search  me."  Art  studied  her  curiously.  "  I 
never  could  keep  track  of  what  you  thought  and  what 
you  meant,  and  I  guess  you  haven't  grown  any  easier  to 
read  since  I  saw  vou  last.  I'll  be  darned  if  I  know 
what  you  came  for;  but  it's  a  cinch  you  didn't  come 
just  to  be  riding  on  the  cars." 

"  ISTo,"  drawled  Jean,  watching  him.  "  I  didn't.  I 
came  after  you." 

Art  Osgood  stared,  while  his  cheeks  darkened  with 
the  flush  of  confusion.  He  laughed  a  little.  "  I  sure 
wish  that  was  the  tiaith,"  he  said.  ^^  Jean,  you  never 
would  have  to  go  very  far  after  any  man  with  two  eyes 
in  his  head.     Don't  rub  it  in." 

"  I  did,"  said  Jean  calmly.  "  I  came  after  you.  I'd 
have  found  you  if  I  had  to  hunt  all  through  Mexico  and 
fight  both  armies  for  you." 

"  Jean !  "  There  was  a  queer,  pleading  note  in  Art's 
voice.  "  I  wish  I  could  believe  that,  but  I  can't.  I 
ain't  a  fool." 


282      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

'^  Yes,  you  are.''  Jean  contradicted  him  pitilessly. 
"  You  were  a  fool  when  you  thought  you  could  go  away 
and  no  one  think  you  knew  anything  at  all  about  — 
Johnny  Croft." 

Art's  fingers  had  been  picking  at  a  loose  splinter  on 
the  wooden  rail  whereon  he  sat.  He  looked  down  at  it, 
jerked  it  loose  with  a  sharp  twist,  and  began  snapping 
off  little  bits  with  his  thumb  and  forefinger.  In  a  min- 
ute he  looked  up  at  Jean,  and  his  eyes  were  different. 
They  were  not  hostile ;  they  were  merely  cold  and  watch- 
ful and  questioning. 

"Well?" 

"  Well,  somebody  did  think  so.  IVe  thought  so  for 
three  years,  and  so  I'm  here."  Jean  found  that  her 
breath  was  coming  fast,  and  that  as  she  leaned  back 
against  a  post  and  gripped  the  rail  on  either  side,  her 
arms  were  quivering  like  the  legs  of  a  frightened  horse. 
Still,  her  voice  had  sounded  calm  enough. 

Art  Osgood  sat  with  his  shoulders  drooped  forward  a 
little,  and  painstakingly  snipped  off  tiny  bits  of  the 
splinter.  After  a  short  silence,  he  turned  his  head 
and  looked  at  her  again. 

"  I  shouldn't  think  you'd  want  to  stir  up  that  trouble 
after  all  this  while,"  he  said.  "  But  women  are  queer. 
I  can't  see,  myself,  why  you'd  want  to  bother  hunting 
me  up  on  account  of  —  that." 


JEAN    MEETS    ONE    CRISIS     283 

Jean  weighed  his  words,  his  look,  his  manner,  and 
got  no  clue  at  all  to  what  was  going  on  back  of  his  eyes. 
On  the  surface,  he  was  just  a  tanned,  fairly  good-look- 
ing young  man  who  has  been  reluctantly  drawn  into  an 
unpleasant  subject. 

'^Well,  I  did  consider  it  worth  while  bothering  to 
hunt  you  up,"  she  told  him  flatly.  "  If  you  don't  think 
it's  important,  you  at  least  won't  object  to  going  back 
with  me  ? " 

Again  his  glance  went  to  her  face,  plainly  startled. 
^'  Go  back  with  you  ?  "  he  repeated.     "  What  for  ?  " 

"  Well  — "  Jean  still  had  some  trouble  with  her 
breath  and  to  keep  her  quiet,  smooth  drawl,  "  let's  make 
it  a  woman's  reason.     Because." 

Art's  face  settled  to  a  certain  hardness  that  still  was 
not  hostile.  "  Becauses  don't  go,"  he  said.  "  Not  with 
a  girl  like  you;  they  might  with  some.  What  do  you 
want  me  to  go  back  for  ?  " 

"Well,  I  want  you  to  go  because  I  want  to  clear 
things  up,  about  Johnny  Croft.  It's  time  —  it  was 
cleared  up." 

Art  regarded  her  fixedly.  "Well,  I  don't  see  yet 
what's  back  of  that  first  because/'  he  sparred. 
"  There's  nothing  I  can  do  to  clear  up  anything." 

"  Art,  don't  lie  to  me  about  it.     I  know  — " 

^^  What  do  you  know  ?  "     Art's  eyes  never  left  her 


284      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY    A 

face,  now.     Thej  seemed  to  be  boring  into  her  brain. 

Jean  began  to  feel  a  certain  confusion.  To  be  sure, 
she  had  never  had  any  experience  whatever  with  fugi- 
tive murderers ;  but  no  one  would  ever  expect  one  to  act 
like  this.  A  little  more,  she  thought  resentfully,  and 
he  would  be  making  her  feel  as  if  she  were  the  guilty 
person.  She  straightened  herself  and  stared  back  at 
him. 

"  I  know  you  left  because  you  —  you  didn't  want  to 
stay  and  face  —  things.  I  —  I  have  felt  as  if  I  could 
kill  you,  almost,  for  what  you  have  done.  I  —  I  don't 
see  how  you  can  sit  there  and  —  and  look  at  me  that 
way."  She  stopped  and  braced  herself.  "  I  don't  want 
to  argue  about  it.  I  came  here  to  make  you  go  back 
and  face  things.  It's  —  horrible — "  She  was  think- 
ing of  her  father  then,  and  she  could  not  go  on. 

"  Jean,  you're  all  wrong.  I  don't  know  what  idea 
you've  got,  but  you  may  as  well  get  one  or  two  things 
straight.  Maybe  you  do  feel  like  killing  me;  but  I 
don't  know  what  for.  I  haven't  the  slightest  notion  of 
going  back;  there's  nothing  I  could  clear  up,  if  I  did 
go." 

Jean  looked  at  him  dumbly.  She  supposed  she 
should  have  to  force  him  to  go,  after  all.  Of  course, 
you  couldn't  expect  that  a  man  who  had  committed  a 
crime  will  admit  it  to  the  first  questioner;  you  couldn't 


JEAN   MEETS    ONE    CRISIS     285 

expect  him  to  go  back  willingly  and  face  tlie  penalty. 
She  would  have  to  use  her  gun;  perhaps  even  call  on 
Lite,  since  Lite  had  followed  her.  She  might  have  felt 
easier  in  her  mind  had  she  seen  how  Lite  was  standing 
just  within  the  glass-paneled  door  behind  the  dimity 
curtain,  listening  to  every  word,  and  watching  every  ex- 
pression on  Art  Osgood's  face.  Lite's  hand,  also,  was 
close  to  his  gun,  to  be  perfectly  sure  of  Jean's  safety. 
But  he  had  no  intention  of  spoiling  her  feeling  of  in- 
dependence if  he  could  help  it.  He  had  lots  of  faith  in 
Jean. 

"  What  has  cropped  up,  anyway  ? "  Art  asked  her 
curiously,  as  if  he  had  been  puzzling  over  her  reasons  for 
being  there.  "  I  thought  that  affair  was  settled  long 
ago,  when  it  happened.  I  thought  it  was  all  straight 
sailing  — " 

"  To  send  an  innocent  man  to  prison  for  it  ?  Do 
you  call  that ,  straight  sailing  ?  "  Jean's  eyes  had  in 
them  now  a  flash  of  anger  that  steadied  her. 

"  What  innocent  man  ?  "  Art  threw  away  the  stub 
of  the  splinter  and  sat  up  straight.  "  I  never  knew  any 
innocent  man  — " 

"Oh!     You  didn't  know?" 

"  All  I  know,"  said  Art,  with  a  certain  swiftness  of 
speech  that  was  a  new  element  in  his  manner,  "  I'm 
dead  willing  to  tell  you.     I  knew  Johnny  had  been 


286      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

around  knocking  the  outfit,  and  making  some  threats, 
and  saying  things  he  had  no  business  to  say.  I  never 
did  have  any  use  for  him,  just  because  he  v^as  so 
mouthy.  I  wasn't  surprised  to  hear  —  how  it  ended 
up." 

"  To  hear !  You  weren't  there,  when  it  hap- 
pened ?  "  Jean  was  watching  him  for  some  betraying 
emotion,  some  sign  that  she  had  struck  home.  She  got 
a  quick,  sharp  glance  from  him,  as  if  he  were  trying  to 
guess  just  how  much  she  knew. 

"  Why  should  I  have  been  there  ?  The  last  time  I 
was  ever  at  the  Lazy  A,"  he  stated  distinctly,  "  was  the 
day  before  I  left.  I  didn't  go  any  farther  than  the  gate 
then.  I  had  a  letter  for  your  father,  and  I  met  him  at 
the  gate  and  gave  it  to  him." 

"  A  letter  for  dad  ?  "  It  was  not  much,  but  it  was 
better  than  nothing.  Jean  thought  she  might  lead  him 
on  to  something  more. 

"  Yes !  A  note,  or  a  letter.  Carl  sent  me  over  with 
it." 

"  Carl  ?     What  was  it  about  ?     I  never  heard  — " 

^^  I  never  read  it.  Ask  your  dad  what  it  was  about, 
why  don't  you?  I  don't  reckon  it  was  anything  par- 
ticular." 

^^  Maybe  it  was,  though."  Jean  was  turning  crafty. 
She  would  pretend  to  be  interested  in  the  letter,  and  trip 


JEAN    MEETS    ONE    CRISIS     287 

Art  somehow  when  he  was  off  his  guard.  "  Are  you 
sure  that  it  was  the  day  before  —  you  left  ?  " 

"  Yes."  Some  high  talk  in  the  street  caught  his  at- 
tention, and  Art  turned  and  looked  down.  Jean  caught 
at  the  chance  to  study  his  averted  face,  but  she  could  not 
read  innocence  or  guilt  there.  Art,  she  decided,  was 
not  as  transparent  as  she  had  always  believed  him  to  be. 
He  turned  back  and  met  her  look.  "  I  know  it  was  the 
day  before.     Why  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  wondered.  Dad  didn't  say  —  What  did  he 
do  with  it  —  the  letter  ?  " 

"  He  opened  it  and  read  it."  A  smile  of  amused 
understanding  of  her  finesse  curled  Art's  lips.  "  And 
he  stuck  it  in  the  pocket  of  his  chaps  and  went  on  to 
wherever  he  was  going."  His  eyes  challenged  her  imp- 
ishly. 

"  And  it  was  from  Uncle  Carl,  you  say  ?  " 

Art  hesitated,  and  the  smile  left  his  lips.  "  It  —  it 
was  from  Carl,  yes.     Why  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  just  wondered."  Jean  was  wondering  why 
he  had  stopped  smiling,  all  at  once,  and  why  he  hesi- 
tated. Was  he  afraid  he  was  going  to  contradict  him- 
self about  the  day  or  the  errand  ?  Or  was  he  afraid  she 
would  ask  her  Uncle  Carl,  and  find  that  there  was  no 
letter  ? 

"  Why    don't    you    ask    your    dad,    if   you    are    so 


288      JEAN   OF    THE    LAZY   A 

anxious  to  know  all  about  it  ?  "  Art  demanded  abruptly. 
"  Anvway,  that's  the  last  time  I  was  ever  over 
there.'' 

"  Ask  dad !  "  Jean's  anger  flamed  out  suddenly. 
"  Art  Osgood,  when  I  think  of  dad,  I  wonder  why  I 
don't  shoot  you !  I  wonder  how  you  dare  sit  there  and 
look  me  in  the  face.  Ask  dad!  Dad,  who  is  paying 
with  his  life  and  all  that's  worth  while  in  life,  for  that 
murder  that  you  deny  — " 

"  What's  that  ?  Paying  how  ?  "  Art  leaned  toward 
her;  and  now  his  face  was  hard  and  hostile,  and  so 
were  his  eyes. 

"  Paying !  You  know  how  he  is  paying !  Paying 
in  Deer  Lodge  penitentiary — " 

"Who?  Your  father?^'  Had  Art  been  ready  to 
spring  at  her  and  catch  her  by  the  throat,  he  would  not 
have  looked  much  different. 

"  My  father !  "  Jean's  voice  broke  upon  the  word. 
"  And  you  - — "  She  did  not  attempt  to  finish  the 
charge. 

Art  sat  looking  at  her  with  a  queer  intensity.  "  Your 
father !  "  he  repeated.  ^'  Aleck !  I  never  knew  that, 
Jean.  Take  my  word,  I  never  knew  that ! "  He 
semed  to  be  thinking  pretty  fast.  "  Where's  Carl  at  ?  " 
he  asked  irrelevantly. 

"  Uncle  Carl  ?     He's  home,  running  both  ranches.    I 


JEAN    MEETS    ONE    CRISIS     289 

—  I  never  could  make  Uncle  Carl  see  that  you  must 
have  been  the  one." 

"  Been  the  one  that  shot  Crofty^  you  mean  ?  "  Art 
gave  a  short  laugh.  He  got  up  and  stood  in  front  of 
her.  "  Thanks,  awfully.  Good  reason  why  he 
couldn't  see  it !  He  knows  well  enough  I  didn't  do  it. 
He  knows  —  who  did."  He  bit  his  lips  then,  as  if  he 
feared  that  he  had  said  too  much. 

^'  Uncle  Carl  knows  ?  Then  why  doesn't  he  tell  ?  It 
wasn't  dad !  "  Jean  took  a  defiant  step  toward  him. 
"  Art  Osgood,  if  you  dare  say  it  was  dad,  I  —  I'll  kill 
you !  " 

Art  smiled  at  her  with  a  brief  lightening  of  his  eyes. 
"  I  believe  you  would,  at  that,"  he  said  soberly.  "  But 
it  wasn't  your  dad,  Jean." 

''  Who  was  it  ?  " 

"I  —  don'c  —  know." 

^'  You  do !  You  do  know,  Art  Osgood !  And  you 
ran  off ;  and  they  gave  dad  eight  years  — " 

Art  spoke  one  word  under  his  breath,  and  that  word 
was  profane.  "  I  don't  see  how  that  could  be,"  he  said 
after  a  minute. 

Jean  did  not  answer.  She  was  biting  her  lips  to  keep 
back  the  tears.  She  felt  that  somehow  she  had  failed ; 
that  Art  Osgood  was  slipping  through  her  fingers,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  he  did  not  seem  to  fear  her  or  to 


290      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

oppose  her  except  in  the  final  accusation.  It  was  the 
lack  of  opposition,  that  lack  of  fear,  that  baffled  her  so. 
Art,  she  felt  dimly,  must  be  very  sure  of  his  own  posi- 
tion ;  was  it  because  he  was  so  close  to  the  Mexican  line  ? 
Jean  glanced  desperately  that  way.  It  was  very  close. 
She  could  see  the  features  of  the  Mexican  soldiers 
lounging  before  the  cantina  over  there;  through  the 
lighted  window  of  the  customhouse  she  could  see  a  dark- 
faced  officer  bending  over  a  littered  desk.  The  guard 
over  there  spoke  to  a  friend,  and  she  could  hear  the 
words  he  said. 

Jean  thought  swiftly.  She  must  not  let  Art  Osgood 
go  back  across  that  street.  She  could  cover  him  with 
her  gun  —  Art  knew  how  well  she  could  use  it !  —  and 
she  would  call  for  an  American  officer  and  have  him 
arrested.  Or,  Lite  was  somewhere  below;  she  would 
call  for  Lite,  and  he  could  go  and  get  an  officer  and  a 
warrant. 

"  How  soon  you  going  back  ? ''  Art  asked  abruptly, 
as  though  he  had  been  pondering  a  problem  and  had 
reached  the  solution.  "  I'll  have  to  get  a  leave  of  ab- 
sence, or  go  down  on  the  books  as  a  deserter;  and  I 
wouldn't  want  that.  I  can  get  it,  all  right.  I'll  go 
back  with  you  and  straighten  this  thing  out,  if  it's  the 
way  you  say  it  is.  I  sure  didn't  know  they'd  pulled 
your  dad  for  it,  Jean." 


JEAN    MEETS    ONE    CRISIS     291 

This,  coming  so  close  upon  the  heels  of  her  own  de- 
cision, set  Jean  all  at  sea  again.  She  looked  at  him 
doubtfully. 

"  I  thought  you  said  you  didn't  know,  and  you 
wouldn't  go  back." 

Art  grinned  sardonically.  "  I'll  lie  any  time  to  help 
a  friend,"  he  admitted  frankly.  "  What  I  do  draw  the 
line  at  is  lying  to  help  some  cowardly  cuss  double-cross 
a  man.  Your  father  got  the  double-cross ;  I  don't  stand 
for  anything  like  that.  'Not  a-tall !  "  He  heaved  a  sigh 
of  nervous  relaxation,  for  the  last  half  hour  had  been 
keyed  rather  high  for  them  both,  and  pulled  his  hat 
down  on  his  head. 

"  Say,  Jean !  Want  to  go  across  with  me  and  meet 
the  general?  You  can  make  my  talk  a  whole  lot 
stronger  by  telling  what  you  came  for.  I'll  get  leave, 
all  right,  then.  And  you'll  know  for  sure  that  I'm 
playing  straight;  You  see  that  two-story  'dobe  about 
half-way  down  the  block, —  the  one  with  the  Mexican 
flag  over  it  ? "  He  pointed.  "  There's  where  he  is. 
Want  to  go  over  ?  " 

"  Any  objections  to  taking  me  along  with  you  ? " 
This  was  Lite,  coming  nonchalantly  toward  them  from 
the  doorway.  Lite  was  still  perfectly  willing  to  let 
Jean  manage  this  affair  in  her  own  way,  but  that  did 
not  mean  that  he  would  not  continue  to  watch  over  her. 


292      JEAN   OF    THE    LAZY   A 

Lite  was  much  like  a  man  who  lets  a  small  boy  believe 
he  is  driving  a  skittish  team  all  alone.  Jean  believed 
that  she  was  acting  alone  in  this,  as  in  everything  else. 
She  had  yet  to  learn  that  Lite  had  for  three  years  been 
always  at  hand,  ready  to  take  the  lines  if  the  team 
proved  too  fractious  for  her. 

Art  turned  and  put  out  his  hand.  "  Why,  hello, 
Lite!  Sure,  you  can  come  along;  glad  to  have  you.'' 
He  eyed  Lite  questioningly.  "  I'll  gamble  you've  heard 
all  we've  been  talking  about,"  he  said.  ''  That  would 
be  you,  all  right!  So  you  don't  need  any  wising  up. 
Come  on;  I  want  to  catch  the  chief  before  he  goes  off 
somewhere." 

To  see  the  three  of  them  go  down  the  stairs  and  out 
upon  the  street  and  across  it  into  Mexico, —  which  to 
Jean  seemed  very  queer, —  you  would  never  dream  of 
the  quest  that  had  brought  them  together  down  here  on 
the  border.  Even  Jean  w^as  smiling,  in  a  tired,  anxious 
way.  She  walked  close  to  Lite  and  never  once  asked 
him  how  he  came  to  be  there,  or  why.  She  was  glad 
that  he  was  there.  She  was  glad  to  shift  the  whole 
matter  to  his  broad  shoulders  now,  and  let  him  take  the 
lead. 

They  had  a  real  Mexican  dinner  in  a  queer  little 
adobe  place  where  x\rt  advised  them  quite  seriously 
never  to   come   alone.     They  had   thick   soup   with   a 


JEAN    MEETS    ONE    CRISIS     293 

strange  flavor,  and  Art  talked  with  the  waiter  in  Mexi- 
can dialect  that  made  Jean  glad  indeed  to  feel  Lite's  el- 
bow touching  hers,  and  to  know  that  although  Lite's 
hand  rested  idly  on  his  knee,  it  was  only  one  second 
from  his  weapon.  She  had  no  definite  suspicion  of  Art 
Osgood,  but  all  the  same  she  was  thankful  that  she  was 
not  there  alone  with  him  among  all  these  dark,  sharp- 
eyed  Mexicans  with  their  atmosphere  of  latent  treach- 
ery. 

Lite  ate  mostly  with  his  left  hand.  Jean  noticed 
that.  It  was  the  only  sign  of  watchfulness  that  he  be- 
trayed, unless  one  added  the  fact  that  he  had  chosen 
a  seat  which  brought  his  back  against  an  adobe  wall 
and  his  face  toward  Art  and  the  room,  with  Jean 
beside  him.  That  might  have  been  pure  chance, 
and  it  might  not.  But  Art  was  evidently  playing 
fair. 

A  little  later  they  came  back  to  the  Casa  del  Sonora, 
and  Jean  went  up  to  her  room  feeling  that  a  great  bur- 
den had  been  lifted  from  her  shoulders.  Lite  and  Art 
Osgood  w^ere  out  on  the  veranda,  gossiping  of  the 
range,  and  in  Art's  pocket  was  a  month's  leave  of  ab- 
sence from  liis  duties.  Once  she  heard  Lite  laugh,  and 
she  stood  with  one  hand  full  of  hairpins  and  the  other 
holding  the  brush  and  listened,  and  smiled  a  little.  It 
all  sounded  very  companionable,  very  care-free, —  not 


294      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

in  the  least  as  though  they  were  about  to  clear  up  an  old 
wrong. 

She  got  into  bed  and  thumped  the  hard  pillow  into 
a  little  nest  for  her  tired  head,  and  listened  languidly 
to  the  familiar  voices  that  came  to  her  mingled  with 
confused  noises  of  the  street.  Lite  was  on  guard;  he 
would  not  lose  his  caution  just  because  Art  seemed 
friendly  and  helpfully  inclined,  and  had  meant  no 
teachery  over  in  that  queer  restaurant.  Lite  would  not 
be  easily  tricked.     So  she  presently  fell  asleep. 


CHAPTEK  XXIII 

A   LITTLE    ENLIGHTENMENT 

SOMETIME  in  the  night  Jean  awoke  to  hear  foot- 
steps in  the  corridor  outside  her  room.  She  sat  up 
with  a  start,  and  her  right  hand  went  groping  for  her 
gun.  Just  for  the  moment  she  thought  that  she  was 
in  her  room  at  the  Lazj  A,  and  that  the  night-prowler 
had  come  and  was  beginning  his  stealthy  search  of  the 
house. 

Then  she  heard  some  one  down  in  the  street  call  out 
a  swift  sentence  in  Spanish,  and  get  a  laugh  for  an 
answer.  She  remembered  that  she  was  in  Nogales, 
within  talking  distance  of  Mexico,  and  that  she  had 
found  Art  Osgood,  and  that  he  did  not  behave  like  a 
fugitive  murderer,  but  like  a  friend  who  was  anxious 
to  help  free  her  father. 

The  footsteps  went  on  down  the  hall, —  the  footsteps 
of  Lite,  who  had  come  and  stood  for  a  minute  outside 
her  door  to  make  sure  that  all  was  quiet  and  that  she 
slept.  But  Jean,  now  that  she  knew  where  she  was, 
lay  wide  awake  and  thinking.  Suddenly  she  sat  up 
again,  staring  straight  before  her. 


296      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY    A 

That  letter, —  the  letter  Art  had  taken  to  her  father ; 
the  letter  he  had  read  and  put  in  the  pocket  of  his 
chaps !  Was  that  what  the  man  had  been  hunting  for, 
those  nights  when  he  had  come  searching  in  that  secret, 
stealthy  way?  She  did  not  remember  ever  having 
looked  into  the  pocket  of  her  father's  chaps,  though  they 
had  hung  in  her  room  all  those  three  years  since  the 
tragedy.  Pockets  in  chaps  were  not,  as  a  general  thing, 
much  used.  Men  carried  matches  in  them  sometimes, 
or  money.  The  flap  over  her  dad's  chap-pocket  was  but- 
toned down,  and  the  leather  was  stiff;  perhaps  the  letter 
was  there  yet. 

She  got  up  and  turned  on  the  light,  and  looked  at  her 
watch.  She  wanted  to  start  then,  that  instant,  for  Los 
Angeles.  She  wanted  to  take  her  dad's  chaps  out  of 
her  trunk  where  she  had  packed  them  just  for  the  com- 
fort of  having  them  with  her,  and  she  wanted  to  look 
and  see  if  the  letter  was  there  still.  There  was  no  par- 
ticular reason  for  believing  that  this  was  of  any  particu- 
lar importance,  or  had  any  bearing  whatever  upon  the 
crime.     But  the  idea  was  there,  and  it  nagged  at  her. 

Her  watch  said  that  it  was  twenty-five  minutes  after 
two  o'clock.  The  train,  Lite  had  told  her,  would  leave 
for  Tucson  at  seven-forty-five  in  the  morning.  She  told 
herself  that,  since  it  was  too  far  to  walk,  and  since  she 
could  not  start  any  sooner  by  staying  up  and  freezing. 


ENLIGHTENMENT  297 

she  might  just  as  well  get  back  into  bed  and  try  to 
sleep. 

But  she  could  not  sleep.  She  kept  thinking  of  the 
letter,  and  trying  to  imagine  what  clue  it  could  possibly 
give  if  she  found  it  still  in  the  pocket.  Carl  had  sent 
it,  Art  said.  A  thought  came  to  Jean  which  she  tried 
to  ignore ;  and  because  she  tried  to  ignore  it,  it  returned 
with  a  dogged  insistence,  and  took  clearer  shape  in  her 
mind,  and  formed  itself  into  questions  which  she  was 
compelled  at  last  to  face  and  try  to  answer. 

Was  it  her  Uncle  Carl  who  had  come  and  searched 
the  house  at  night,  trying  to  find  that  letter  ?  If  it  were 
her  uncle,  why  was  he  so  anxious  to  find  it,  after  three 
years  had  passed  ?  What  was  in  the  letter  ?  If  it  had 
any  bearing  whatever  upon  the  death  of  Johnny  Croft, 
why  hadn't  her  dad  mentioned  it?  Why  hadn't  her 
Uncle  Carl  said  something  about  it?  Was  the  letter 
just  a  note  about  some  ranch  business  ?  Then  why  else 
should  any  one  come  at  night  and  prowl  all  through  the 
house,  and  never  take  anything?  Why  had  he  come 
that  first  night  ? 

'  Jean  drew  in  her  breath  sharply.  All  at  once,  like 
a  flashlight  turned  upon  a  dark  corner  of  her  mind,  she 
remembered  something  about  that  night.  She  remem- 
bered how  she  had  told  her  Uncle  Carl  that  she  meant 
to  prove  that  her  dad  was  innocent;  that  she  meant  to 


298      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

investigate  the  devious  process  by  which  the  Lazy  A 
ranch  and  all  the  stock  had  ceased  to  belong  to  her  or 
her  father;  that  she  meant  to  adopt  sly,  sleuth-like 
methods;  she  remembered  the  very  words  which  she 
had  used.  She  remembered  how  bitter  her  uncle  had 
become.  Had  she  frightened  him,  somehow,  with  her 
bold  declaration  that  she  would  not  "  let  sleeping  dogs 
lie  "  any  longer  ?  Had  he  remembered  the  letter,  and 
been  uneasy  because  of  what  was  in  it?  But  what 
could  be  in  it,  if  it  were  written  at  least  a  day  before 
the  terrible  thing  had  happened  ? 

She  remembered  her  uncle's  uncontrolled  fury  that 
evening  when  she  had  ridden  over  to  see  Lite.  What 
had  she  said  to  cause  it  ?  She  tried  to  recall  her  words, 
and  finally  she  did  remember  saying  something  about 
proving  that  her  own  money  had  been  paying  for  her 
^^  keep  '^  for  three  years.  Then  he  had  gone  into  that 
rage,  and  she  had  not  at  the  time  seen  any  connection 
between  her  words  and  his  raving  anger.  But  perhaps 
there  was  a  connection.     Perhaps  — 

"  Oh,  my  goodness !  "  she  exclaimed  aloud.  She  was 
remembering  the  telegram  which  she  had  sent  him  just 
before  she  left  Los  Angeles  for  ISTogales.  "  He'll  just 
simply  go  wild  when  he  gets  that  wire !  "  She  recalled 
now  how  he  had  insisted  all  along  that  Art  Osgood 
knew  absolutely  nothing  about  the  murder ;  she  recalled 


ENLIGHTENMENT  299 

also,  with  an  uncanny  sort  of  vividness,  Art's  manner 
when  he  had  admitted  for  the  second  time  that  the  let- 
ter had  been  from  Carl.  She  remembered  how  he  had 
changed  when  he  found  that  her  father  was  being  pun- 
ished for  the  crime. 

She  did  not  know,  just  yet,  how  all  these  tangled 
facts  were  going  to  work  out.  She  had  not  yet  come  to 
the  final  question  that  she  would  presently  be  asking 
herself.  She  felt  sure  that  her  uncle  knew  more, — 
a  great  deal  more, —  about  Johnny  Croft's  death  than 
he  had  appeared  to  know;  but  she  had  not  yet  reached 
the  point  to  which  her  reasonings  inevitably  would 
bring  her ;  perhaps  her  mind  was  subconsciously  delay- 
ing the  ultimate  conclusion. 

She  got  up  and  dressed;  unfastening  her  window, 
she  stepped  out  on  the  veranda.  The  street  was  quiet 
at  that  time  in  the  morning.  A  sentry  stood  on  guard 
at  the  corner,  and  here  and  there  a  light  flared  in  some 
window  where  others  were  wakeful.  But  for  the  most 
part  the  town  lay  asleep.  Over  in  what  was  really  the 
Mexican  quarter,  three  or  four  roosters  were  crowing 
as  if  they  would  never  leave  off.  The  sound  of  them 
depressed  Jean,  and  made  her  feel  how  heavy  was  the 
weight  of  her  great  undertaking, —  heavier  now,  when 
the  end  was  almost  in  sight,  than  it  had  seemed  on  that 
moonlight  night  when  she  had  ridden  over  to  the  Lazy 


300      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

A  and  had  not  the  faintest  idea  of  how  she  was  going 
to  accomplish  any  part  of  her  task  which  she  had  set 
herself.  She  shivered,  and  turned  back  to  get  the  gay 
serape  which  she  had  bought  from  an  old  Mexican 
woman  when  they  were  coming  out  of  that  queer  res- 
taurant last  evening. 

When  she  came  out  again,  Lite  was  standing  there, 
smoking  a  cigarette  and  leaning  against  a  post. 

"  You'd  better  get  some  sleep,  Jean,"  he  reproved  her 
when  she  came  and  stood  beside  him.  "  You  had  a 
pretty  hard  day  yesterday;  and  to-day  won't  be  any 
easier.     Better  go  back  and  lie  down." 

Jean  merely  pulled  the  serape  snugger  about  her 
shoulders  and  sat  down  sidewise  upon  the  railing.  "  I 
couldn't  sleep,"  she  said.  "  If  I  could,  I  wouldn't  be 
out  here;  I'd  be  asleep,  wouldn't  I?  Why  don't  you 
go  to  bed  yourself  ?  " 

"  Ah-h,  Art's  learned  to  talk  Spanish,"  he  said  drily. 
"  I  got  myself  all  worked  up  trying  to  make  out  what 
he  was  trying  to  say  in  his  sleep,  and  then  I  found  out 
it  wasn't  my  kinda  talk,  anyway.  So  I  quit.  What's 
the  matter  that  you  can't  sleep  ?  " 

Jean  stared  down  at  the  shadowy  street.  A  dog  ran 
out  from  somewhere,  sniffed  at  a  doorstep,  and  trotted 
over  into  Mexico  and  up  to  the  sentry.  The  sentry 
patted  it  on  the  head  and  muttered  a  friendly  word  or 


ENLIGHTENMENT  301 

two.  Jean  watched  him  absently.  It  was  all  so  peace- 
ful! Not  at  all  what  one  would  expect,  after  seeing 
pictures  of  all  those  refugees  and  all  those  soldiers  fight- 
ing, and  the  dead  lying  in  the  street  in  some  little 
town  whose  name  she  could  not  pronounce  cor- 
rectly. 

"  Did  you  hear  Art  tell  about  taking  a  letter  to  dad 
— -  the  day  before  ? ''  she  asked  abruptly.  "  He  wasn't 
telling  the  truth,  not  all  the  time.  But  somehow  I  be- 
lieve that  was  the  truth.  He  said  dad  stuck  it  in  the 
pocket  of  his  chaps.  I  believe  it^s  there  yet,  Lite.  I 
don't  remember  ever  looking  into  that  pocket.  And  I 
believe  —  Lite,  I  never  said  anything  about  it,  but  some- 
body kept  coming  to  the  house  in  the  night  and  hunting 
around  through  all  the  rooms.  He  never  came  into  my 
room,  so  I  —  I  didn't  bother  him ;  but  I've  wondered 
what  he  was  after.  It  just  occurred  to  me  that 
maybe  — " 

"  I  never  could  fig-ure  out  what  he  was  after,  either," 
Lite  observed  quietly. 

^^  You  ? "  Jean  turned  her  head,  so  that  her  eyes 
shone  in  the  light  of  a  street  lamp  while  she  looked  up 
at  him.  "  How  in  the  world  did  you  know  about 
him?" 

Lite  laughed  drily.  "  I  don't  think  there's  much 
concerns  you  that  I  don't  know,"  he  confessed.     "  I  saw 


302      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

him,  I  guess,  every  time  he  came  around.  He  couldn't 
have  made  a  crooked  move, —  and  got  away  with  it. 
But  I  never  could  figure  him  out  exactly." 

Jean  looked  at  him,  touched  by  the  care  of  her  that 
he  had  betrayed  in  those  few  words.  Always  she  had 
accepted  him  as  the  one  friend  who  never  failed  her, 
but  lately, —  since  the  advent  of  the  motion-picture  peo- 
ple, to  be  exact, —  a  new  note  had  crept  into  his  friend- 
ship ;  a  new  meaning  into  his  watching  over  her.  She 
had  sensed  it,  but  she  had  never  faced  it  openly.  She 
pulled  her  thoughts  away  from  it  now. 

"  Did  you  know  who  he  was  ? '' 

It  was  like  Jean  to  come  straight  to  the  point.  Lite 
smiled  faintly ;  he  knew  that  question  would  come,  and 
he  knew  that  he  would  have  to  answer  it. 

"  Sure.  I  made  it  my  business  to  know  who  he 
was." 

''Who  was  it,  Lite?" 

Lite  did  not  say.  He  knew  that  question  was  com- 
ing also,  but  he  did  not  know  whether  he  ought  to  an- 
swer it. 

'^  It  was  Uncle  Carl,  wasn't  it  ?  " 

Lite  glanced  down  at  her  quickly.  "  You're  a  good 
little  guesser." 

"  Then  it  was  that  letter  he  was  after."  She  was 
silent  for  a  minute,  and  then  she  looked  at  her  watch. 


ENLIGHTENMENT  303 

^^  And  I  can't  get  at  those  chaps  before  to-morrow  1  " 
She  sighed  and  leaned  back  against  the  post. 

"  Lite,  if  it  was  worth  all  that  hunting  for,  it  must 
mean  something  to  us.  I  wonder  what  it  can  be ;  don't 
you  know  ?  " 

"  ISTo/'  said  Lite  slowly,  "  I  don't.  And  it's  some- 
thing a  man  don't  want  to  do  any  guessing  about." 

This,  Jean  felt,  was  a  gentle  reproof  for  her  own 
speculations  upon  the  subject.  She  said  no  more  about 
the  letter. 

"  I  sent  him  a  telegram,"  she  informed  Lite  irrele- 
vantly, "  saying  I'd  located  Art  and  was  going  to  take 
him  back  there.  I  wonder  what  he  thought  when  he 
got  that !  " 

Lite  turned  half  around  and  stared  down  at  her.  He 
opened  his  lips  to  speak,  hesitated,  and  closed  them 
without  making  a  sound.  He  turned  away  and  stared 
down  into  the  street  that  was  so  empty.  After  a  little 
he  glanced  at  his  own  watch,  with  the  same  impulse  Jean 
had  felt.  The  hours  and  minutes  were  beginning  to 
drag  their  feet  as  they  passed. 

"  You  go  in,"  he  ordered  gently,  "  and  lie  down. 
You'll  be  all  worn  out  when  the  time  comes  for  you  to 
get  busy.  We  don't  know  what's  ahead  of  us  on  this 
trail,  Jean.  Right  now,  it's  peaceful  as  Sunday  morn- 
ing down  in  Maine;  so  you  go  in  and  get  some  sleep, 


304      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

while  you  have  a  chance,  and  stop  thinking  about  things. 
Go  on,  Jean.  I'll  call  you  plenty  early;  you  needn't 
be  afraid  of  missing  the  train." 

Jean  smiled  a  little  at  the  tender,  protective  note  of 
authority  in  his  voice  and  manner.  Whether  she  per- 
mitted it  or  not,  Lite  would  go  right  on  watching  over 
her  and  taking  care  of  her.  With  a  sudden  desire  to 
please  him,  she  rose  obediently.  When  she  passed  him, 
she  reached  out  and  gave  his  arm  a  little  squeeze. 

"You  cantankerous  old  tyrant,"  she  drawled  in  a 
whisper,  "  you  do  love  to  haze  me  around,  don't  you  ? 
Just  to  spite  you,  I'll  do  it  1  "  She  went  in  and  left 
him  standing  there,  smoking  and  leaning  against  the 
post,  calm  as  the  stars  above.'  But  under  that  surface 
calm,  the  heart  of  Lite  Avery  was  thumping  violently. 
His  arm  quivered  still  under  the  thrill  of  Jean's  fingers. 
Your  bottled-up  souls  are  quick  to  sense  the  meaning 
in  a  tone  or  a  touch ;  Jean,  whether  she  herself  knew  it 
or  not,  had  betrayed  an  emotion  that  set  Lite's  thoughts 
racing  out  into  a  golden  future.  He  stood  there  a  long 
while,  staring  out  upon  the  darkness,  his  eyes  shining. 


CHAPTEE  XXIV 

THE    LETTER    IN    TPIE    CHAPS 

THOUGH  hours  may  drag  themselves  into  the  past 
so  sluggishly  that  one  is  fairly  maddened  by  the 
snail's  pace  of  them,  into  the  past  they  must  go  eventu- 
ally. Jean  had  sat  and  listened  to  the  wheels  of  the 
Golden  State  Limited  clank  over  the  cryptic  phrase  that 
meant  so  much.  "  Letter-in-the-chaps !  Letter-in-the- 
chaps ! "  was  what  they  had  said  while  the  train 
pounded  across  the  desert  and  slid  through  arroyas  and 
deep  cuts  which  leveled  hills  for  its  passing.  ^^  Letter- 
in-the-chaps  !  Letter-in-the-chaps !  "  And  then  a  si- 
lence while  they  stood  by  some  desolate  station  where 
the  people  were  swarthy  of  skin  and  black  of  hair  and 
eyes,  and  moved  languidly  if  they  moved  at  all.  Then 
they  would  go  on ;  and  when  the  wheels  had  clicked  over 
the  switches  of  the  various  side  tracks,  they  would  take 
up  again  the  refrain :  "  Letter-in-the-chaps !  Letter- 
in-the-chaps  !  "  until  Jean  thought  she  would  go  crazy 
if  they  kept  it  up  much  longer. 

Little  by  little  they  drew  near  to  Los  Angeles.     And 
then  they  were  there,  sliding  slowly  through  the  yards 


306      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

in  a  drab  drizzle  of  one  of  California's  fall  rains.  Then 
they  were  in  a  taxicab,  making  for  the  Third  Street  tun- 
nel. Then  Jean  stared  heavy-eyed  at  the  dripping 
palms  along  the  boulevard  which  led  away  from  the 
smoke  of  the  city  and  into  Hollywood,  snuggled  against 
the  misty  hills.  "  Letter-in-the-chaps !  "  her  tired  brain 
repeated  it  still. 

Then  she  was  in  the  apartment  shared  with  Muriel 
Gay  and  her  mother.  These  two  were  over  at  the 
studio,  the  landlady  told  her  when  she  let  them  in,  and 
Jean  was  glad  that  they  were  gone. 

She  knelt,  still  in  her  hat  and  coat  and  with  her 
gloves  on,  and  fitted  her  trunk  key  into  the  lock.  And 
there  she  stopped.  What  if  the  letter  were  not  in 
the  chaps,  after  all  ?  What  if  it  were  but  a  trivial  note, 
concerning  a  matter  long  since  forgotten ;  a  trivial  note 
that  had  not  the  remotest  bearing  upon  the  murder? 
"  Letter-in-the-chaps ! ''  The  phrase  returned  with  a 
mocking  note  and  beat  insistently  through  her  brain. 
She  sat  back  on  the  floor  and  shivered  with  the  chill  of  a 
fireless  room  in  California,  when  a  fall  rain  is  at  its 
drizzling  worst. 

In  the  next  room  one  of  the  men  coughed;  after- 
wards she  heard  Lite's  voice,  saying  something  in  an 
undertone  to  Art  Osgood.  She  heard  Art's  voice  mut- 
ter a  reply.     She  raised  herself  again  to  her  knees. 


LETTER   IN    THE    CHAPS     307 

turned  the  key  in  the  lock,  and  lifted  the  trunk-lid  with 
an  air  of  determination. 

Down  next  the  bottom  of  her  big  trunk  they  lay,  just 
as  she  had  packed  them  away,  with  her  dad's  six-shooter 
and  belt  carefully  disposed  between  the  leathern  folds. 
She  groped  with  her  hands  under  a  couple  of  riding- 
skirts  and  her  high,  laced  boots,  got  a  firm  grip  on  the 
fringed  leather^  and  dragged  them  out.  She  had  for- 
gotten all  about  the  gun  and  belt  until  they  fell  with  a 
thump  on  the  floor.  She  pulled  out  the  belt,  left  the 
gun  lying  there  by  the  trunk,  and  hurried  out  with  the 
chaps  dangling  over  her  arm. 

She  was  pale  when  she  stood  before  the  two  who  sat 
there  waiting  with  their  hats  in  their  hands  and  their 
faces  full  of  repressed  eagerness.  Her  fingers  trembled 
while  she  pulled  at  the  stiff,  leather  flap  of  the  pocket, 
to  free  it  from  the  button. 

^'  Maybe  it  ain't  there  yet,"  Art  hazarded  nervously, 
while  they  watched  her.  '^  But  that's  where  he  put  it, 
all  right.     I  saw  him." 

Jean's  fingers  went  groping  into  the  pocket,  stayed 
there  for  a  second  or  two,  and  came  out  holding  a  folded 
envelope. 

"  That's  it ! "  Art  leaned  toward  her  eagerly. 
''  That's  the  one,  all  right." 

Jean  sat  down  suddenly  because  her  knees  seemed 


308      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

to  bend  under  her  weight.  Three  years  —  and  that  let- 
ter within  her  reach  all  the  time ! 

"  Lef  s  see,  Jean."  Lite  reached  out  and  took  it  from 
her  nerveless  fingers.  "  Maybe  it  won't  amount  to  any- 
thing at  all." 

Jean  tried  to  hold  herself  calm.  "Read  it  —  out 
loud/'  she  said.  "  Then  we'll  know."  She  tried  to 
smile,  and  made  so  great  a  failure  of  it  that  she  came 
very  near  crying.  The  faint  crackle  of  the  cheap  paper 
when  Lite  unfolded  the  letter  made  her  start  nervously. 
"  Read  it  —  no  matter  —  what  it  is,"  she  repeated, 
when  she  saw  Lite's  eyes  go  rapidly  over  the  lines. 

Lite  glanced  at  her  sharply,  then  leaned  and  took 
her  hand  and  held  it  close.  His  firm  clasp  steadied  her 
more  than  any  words  could  have  done.  Without  fur- 
ther delay  or  attempt  to  palliate  its  grim  significance, 
he  read  the  note : 

Aleck : 

If  Johnny  Croft  comes  to  you  with  anything  about  me, 
kick  him  off  the  ranch.  He  claims  he  knows  a  whole  lot 
about  me  branding  too  many  calves.  Don't  believe  anything 
he  tells  you.  He's  just  trying  to  make  trouble  because  he 
claims  I  underpaid  him.  He  was  telling  Art  a  lot  of  stuff 
that  he  claimed  he  could  prove  on  me,  but  it's  all  a  lie. 
Send  him  to  me  if  he  comes  looking  for  trouble.  I'll  give 
him  all  he  wants. 

Art  found  a  heifer  down  in  the  breaks  that  looks  like 


LETTER    IN    THE    CHAPS     309 

she  might  have  blackleg.  I'm  going  down  there  to  see  about 
it.  Maybe  you  better  ride  over  and  see  what  you  think 
about  it;  we  don't  want  to  let  anything  like  that  get  a  start 
on  us. 

Don't  pay  any  attention  to  Johnny.     I'll  fix  him  if  he 
don't  keep  his  face  shut. 

Carl. 

"  Carl !  "  Jean  repeated  the  name  mechanically. 
"  Carl." 

"  I  kinda  thought  it  was  something  like  that,"  Art 
Osgood  interrupted  her  to  sav.  ''  !Now  you  know  that 
much,  and  I'll  tell  you  just  what  I  know  about  it.  It 
was  Carl  shot  Crofty,  all  right.  I  rode  over  with  him  to 
the  Lazy  A ;  I  was  on  my  way  to  town  and  we  went  that 
far  together.  I  rode  that  way  to  tell  you  good-by."  He 
looked  at  Jean  with  a  certain  diffidence.  "  I  kinda 
wanted  to  see  you  before  I  went  clear  outa  the  country, 
but  you  weren't  at  home. 

"  Johnny  Croft's  horse  was  standing  outside  the 
house  when  we  rode  up.  I  guess  he  must  have  just 
got  there  ahead  of  us.  Carl  got  off  and  went  in  ahead 
of  me.  Johnny  was  eating  a  snack  when  I  went  in. 
He  said  something  to  Carl,  and  Carl  flared  up.  I  saw 
there  wasn't  anybody  at  home,  and  I  didn't  want  to  get 
mixed  up  in  the  argument,  so  I  turned  and  went  on  out. 
And  I  hadn't  more  than  got  to  my  horse  when  I  heard 


310      JEAN   OF    THE   LAZY   A 

a  shot,  and  Carl  came  running  out  with  his  gun  in  his 
hand. 

"  Well,  Johnny  was  dead,  and  there  wasn't  anything 
I  could  do  about  it.  Carl  told  me  to  beat  it  outa  the 
country,  just  like  I'd  been  planning;  he  said  it  would 
be  a  whole  lot  better  for  him,  seeing  I  wasn't  an  eye- 
witness. He  said  Johnny  started  to  draw  his  gun,  and 
he  shot  in  self-defense;  and  he  said  I  better  go  while 
the  going  was  good,  or  I  might  get  pulled  into  it  some 
way. 

"  Well,  I  thought  it  over  for  a  minute,  and  I  didn't 
see  where  it  would  get  me  anything  to  stay.  I  couldn't 
help  Carl  any  by  staying,  because  I  wasn't  in  the  house 
when  it  happened.  So  I  hit  the  trail  for  town,  and 
never  said  anything  to  anybody."  He  looked  at  the  two 
contritely.  "  I  never  knew,  till  you  folks  came  to  No- 
gales  looking  for  me,  that  things  panned  out  the  way 
they  did.  I  thought  Carl  was  going  to  give  himself  up, 
and  would  be  cleared.  I  never  once  dreamed  he  was 
the  kinda  mark  that  would  let  his  own  brother  take  the 
blame  that  way." 

"  I  guess  nobody  did."  Lite  folded  the  letter  and 
pushed  it  back  into  the  envelope.  "  I  can  look  back 
now,  though,  and  see  how  it  come  about.  He  hung 
back  till  Aleck  found  the  body  and  was  arrested;  and 
after  that  he  just  simply  didn't  have  the  nerve  to  step 


LETTER    IN    THE    CHAPS     311 

out  and  say  that  he  was  the  one  that  did  it.  He  tried 
hard  to  save  Aleck,  but  he  wouldn't  — " 

"  The  coward !  The  low,  mean  coward !  "  Jean 
stood  up  and  looked  from  one  to  the  other,  and  spoke 
through  her  clinched  teeth.  "  To  let  dad  suffer  all  this 
while !  Lite,  when  did  you  say  that  train  left  for  Salt 
Lake  ?  We  can  take  the  taxi  back  down  town,  and  save 
time.''  She  was  at  the  door  when  she  turned  toward 
the  two  again.  ''  Hurry  up !  Don't  you  know  we've 
got  to  hurry?  Dad's  in  prison  all  this  while!  And 
Uncle  Carl, —  there's  no  telling  where  Uncle  Carl  is! 
That  wire  I  sent  him  was  the  worst  thing  I  could  have 
done !  " 

*^  Or  the  best,"  suggested  Lite  laconically,  as  he  led 
the  way  down  the  hall  and  out  to  the  rain-drenched, 
waiting  taxicab. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

LITE  COMES  OUT  OF  THE  BACXGEOUND 

FOR  hours  Jean  had  sat  staring  out  at  the  drear 
stretches  of  desert  dripping  under  the  dismal  rain 
that  streaked  the  car  windows.  The  clouds  hung  leaden 
and  gray  close  over  the  eai*th ;  the  smoke  from  the  engine 
trailed  a  funereal  plume  across  the  grease-wood  covered 
plain.  Away  in  the  distance  a  low  line  of  hills 
stretched  vaguely,  as  though  they  were  placed  there  to 
hold  up  the  sky  that  was  so  heavy  and  dank.  Along- 
side the  track  every  ditch  ran  full  of  clay-colored  water 
that  wrapped  little,  ragged  wreaths  of  dirty  foam  around 
every  obstruction,  like  the  tawdry  finery  of  the  slums. 

From  the  smoking-room  where  he  had  been  for  the 
past  two  hours  with  Art  Osgood,  Lite  came  unsteadily 
down  the  aisle,  heralded  as  it  were  by  the  muffled 
scream  of  the  whistle  at  a  country  crossing.  Jean 
turned  toward  him  a  face  as  depressed  as  the  desert  out 
there  under  the  rain.  Lite,  looking  at  her  keenly,  saw 
on  her  cheeks  the  traces  of  tears.     He  let  himself  down 


LITE    COMES    OUT  313 

wearily  into  the  seat  beside  her,  reached  over  calmly, 
and  took  her  hand  from  off  her  lap  and  held  it  snugly 
in  his  own. 

"  This  is  likely  a  snowstorm,  up  home,"  he  said  in 
his  quiet,  matter-of-fact  way.  "  I  guess  we'll  have  to 
make  our  headquarters  in  town  till  I  get  things  hauled 
out  to  the  ranch.  That's  it,  when  you  can't  look  ahead 
and  see  what's  coming.  I  could  have  had  everything 
ready  to  go  right  on  out,  only  I  thought  there  wouldn't 
be  any  use,  before  spring,  anyway.  But  if  this  storm 
ain't  a  blizzard  up  there,  a  couple  of  days  will  straighten 
things  out." 

Jean  turned  her  head  and  regarded  him  attentively. 
"  Out  where  ?  "  she  asked  him  bluntly.  ^^  What  are  you 
talking  about  ?  Have  you  and  Art  been  celebrating  ?  " 
She  knew  better  than  that.  Lite  never  indulged  in 
liquid  celebrations,  and  Jean  knew  it. 

Lite  reached  into  his  pocket  with  the  hand  that  was 
free,  and  drew  forth  a  telegram  envelope.  He  released 
her  hand  while  he  drew  out  the  message,  but  he  did  not 
hand  it  to  her  immediately.  "  I  wired  Kossman  from 
Los  Angeles,"  he  informed  her,  "  and  told  him  what 
was  up,  and  asked  him  to  put  me  up  to  date  on  that  end 
of  the  line.  So  he  did.  I  got  this  back  there  at  that 
last  town."  He  laid  his  hand  over  hers  again,  and 
looked  down  at  her  sidelong. 


314      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

"  Ever  since  the  trouble/'  he  began  abruptly,  but 
still  in  that  quiet,  matter-of-fact  way,  "  I've  been  play- 
ing a  lone  hand  and  kinda  holding  back  and  waiting  for 
something  to  drop.  I  had  that  idea  all  along  that 
you've  had  this  summer :  getting  hold  of  the  Lazy  A  and 
j&xing  it  up  so  your  dad  would  have  a  place  to  come 
back  to.  I  never  said  anything,  because  talking  don't 
come  natural  to  me  like  it  does  to  some,  and  I'd  rather 
do  a  thing  first  and  then  talk  about  it  afterwards  if  I 
have  to. 

"  So  I  hung  on  to  what  money  I  had  saved  up  along ; 
I  was  going  to  get  me  a  bunch  of  cattle  and  fix  up  that 
homestead  of  mine  some  day,  and  maybe  have  a  little 
home."  His  eyes  went  surreptitiously  to  her  face,  and 
lingered  there  wistfully.  "  So  after  the  trouble  I 
buckled  down  to  work  and  saved  a  little  faster,  if  any- 
thing. It  looked  to  me  like  there  wasn't  much  hope  of 
doing  anything  for  your  dad  till  his  sentence  ran  out, 
so  I  never  said  anything  about  it.  Long  as  Carl  didn't 
try  to  sell  it  to  anybody  else,  I  just  waited  and  got  to- 
gether all  the  money  I  could.  I  didn't  see  as  there  was 
anything  else  to  do." 

Jean  was  chewing  a  corner  of  her  lip,  and  was  staring 
out  of  the  window.  "  I  didn't  know  I  was  stealing 
your  thunder,  Lite,"  she  said  dispiritedly.  "Why 
didn't  you  tell  me  ?  " 


LITE    COMES    OUT  315 

"  Wasn't  anything  to  tell  —  till  there  was  something 
to  tell.  Now,  this  telegram  here, —  this  is  what  I 
started  out  to  talk  about.  It'll  be  just  as  well  if  you 
know  it  before  we  get  to  Helena.  I  showed  it  to  Art, 
and  he  thought  the  same  as  I  did.  You  know, —  or 
I  reckon  you  don't,  because  I  never  said  anything, — 
away  last  summer,  along  about  the  time  you  went  to 
work  for  Burns,  I  got  to  thinking  things  over,  and  I 
wondered  if  Carl  didn't  have  something  on  his  mind 
about  that  killing.  So  I  wrote  to  Eossman.  I  didn't 
much  like  the  way  he  handled  your  dad's  case,  but  he 
knew  all  the  ins  and  outs,  so  I  could  talk  to  him  with- 
out going  away  back  at  the  beginning.  He  knew  Carl, 
too,  so  that  made  it  easier. 

"  I  wrote  and  told  him  how  Carl  was  prowling 
around  through  the  house  nights,  and  the  like  of  that, 
and  to  look  up  the  title  to  the  Lazy  A  — " 

"  Why  wouldn't  you  wait  and  let  me  buy  it  myself  ?  " 
Jean  asked  him  with  just  a  shade  of  sharpness  in  her 
voice.     "  You  knew  I  wanted  to." 

"  So  I  got  Rossman  started,  quite  a  while  back.  He 
thought  as  I  did,  that  Carl  was  acting  mighty  funny. 
I  was  with  Carl  more  than  you  was,  and  I  could  tell 
he  had  something  laying  heavy  on  his  mind.  But  then, 
the  rest  of  us  had  things  laying  pretty  heavy  on  our 
minds,  too,  that  wasn't  guilt ;  so  there  wasn't  any  way 


316      JEAN   OF    THE    LAZY   A 

to  tell  what  was  bothering  Carl."  Lite  made  no  attempt 
to  answer  the  question  she  had  asked. 

"  I^ow,  here's  this  wire  Rossman  sent  me.  You  don't 
want  to  get  the  wrong  idea,  Jean,  and  feel  too  bad  about 
this.  You  don't  want  to  think  you  had  anything  to  do 
with  it.  Carl  was  gradually  building  up  to  something 
of  this  kind, —  has  been  for  a  long  time.  His  coming 
over  to  the  ranch  nights,  looking  for  that  letter  that 
he  had  hunted  all  over  for  at  first,  shows  he  wasn't  right 
in  his  mind  on  the  subject.     But  — " 

"  Well,  heavens  and  earth,  Lite !  "  Jean's  tone  was 
exasperated  more  than  it  was  worried.  "Why  don't 
you  say  what  you  want  to  say?  What's  it  all  about? 
Let  me  read  that  telegram  and  be  done  with  it.  I  —  I 
should  think  you'd  know  I  can  stand  things,  by  this 
time.     I  haven't  shown  any  weak  knees,  have  I  ?  " 

"  Well,  I  hate  to  pile  on  any  more,"  Lite  muttered 
defensively.  "  But  you've  got  to  know  this.  I  wish 
you  didn't,  but — " 

Jean  did  not  say  any  more.  She  reached  over  and 
with  her  free  hand  took  the  telegram  from  him.  She 
did  not  pull  away  the  hand  Lite  was  holding,  however, 
and  the  heart  of  him  gave  an  exultant  bound  because 
she  let  it  lie  there  quiet  under  his  own.  She  pinched 
her  brows  together  over  the  message,  and  let  it  drop 
into  her  lap.     Her  head  went  back  against  the  towel- 


LITE    COMES    OUT  317 

covered  head-rest,  and  for  a  minute  her  eyes  closed  as 
if  she  could  not  look  any  longer  upon  trouble. 

Lite  waited  a  second,  pulled  her  head  over  against 
his  shoulder,  and  picked  up  the  telegram  and  read  it 
through  slowly,  though  he  could  have  repeated  it  word 
for  word  with  his  eyes  shut. 

L.  Avery, 

En  Koute  Train  23,  S.  L.  &  D.  K.  K. 
Carl  Douglas  suicided  yesterday,  leaving  letter  confessing 
murder  of  Croft.  Had  just  completed  transfer  of  land  and 
cattle  to  your  name.  Am  taking  steps  placing  matter  be- 
fore governor  immediately  expect  him  to  act  at  once  upon 
pardon.  Bring  your  man  my  office  at  once  deposition  may 
be  required. 

J.  W.   EOSSMAN. 

"  Xow,  I  told  you  not  to  worry  about  this,"  Lite  re- 
minded the  girl  firmly.  ^*  Looks  to  me  like  it  takes  a 
load  off  our  ha^ds, —  CarFs  doing  what  he  done.  Saves 
us  dragging  it  all  through  court  again;  and,  Jean,  it'll 
let  your  dad  out  a  whole  lot  quicker.  Sounds  kinda 
cold-blooded,  maybe,  but  if  you  could  look  at  it  as  good 
news, —  that's  the  way  it  strikes  me." 

Jean  did  not  say  a  word,  just  then.  She  did  what 
you  might  not  expect  Jean  to  do,  after  all  her  strong- 
mindedness  and  her  independence:  She  made  an  un- 
certain movement  toward  sitting  up  and  facing  things 


318      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

calmly,  man-fashion;  then  she  leaned  and  dropped  her 
verj  independent  brown  head  back  upon  Lite's  shoul- 
der, and  behind  her  handkerchief  she  cried  quietly 
while  Lite  held  her  close. 

"  Now,  that's  long  enough  to  cry,"  he  whispered  to 
her,  after  a  season  of  mental  intoxication  such  as  he  had 
never  before  experienced.  "  I  started  out  three  years 
ago  to  be  the  boss.  I  ain't  been  working  at  it  regular, 
as  you  might  say,  all  the  time.  But  I'm  going  to  wind 
up  that  way.  I  hate  to  turn  you  over  to  your  dad  with- 
out some  little  show  of  making  good  at  the  job." 

Jean  gave  a  little  gurgle  that  may  have  been  related 
to  laughter,  and  Lite's  lips  quirked  with  humorous  em- 
barrassment as  he  went  on. 

"  I  don't  guess,"  he  said  slowly,  "  that  I'm  going  to 
turn  you  over  at  all,  Jean,  l^ot  altogether.  I  guess 
I've  just  about  got  to  keep  you.  It  —  takes  two  to 
make  a  home,  and  —  I've  got  my  heart  set  on  us  making 
a  home  outa  the  Lazy  A  again ;  you  and  me,  making  a 
home  for  us  and  your  dad.  How  —  how  does  that 
sound  to  you,  Jean  ?  " 

Jean  was  wiping  her  eyes  as  unobtrusively  as  she 
might.     She  did  not  answer. 

"  How  does  it  sound,  you  and  me  making  a  home 
together  ?  "  Lite  was  growing  pale,  and  his  hands  trem- 
bled.    "  Tell  me." 


LITE    COMES    OUT  319 

"  It  sounds  —  good/'  said  Jean  unsteadily. 

For  several  minutes  Lite  did  not  say  a  word.  They 
sat  there  holding  hands  quite  foolishly,  and  stared  out 
at  the  drenched  desert. 

"  Soon  as  your  dad  conies,"  he  said  at  last,  very  sim- 
ply,  "  we'll  be  married."  He  was  silent  another  min- 
ute, and  added  under  his  breath  like  a  prayer,  "  And 
we'll  all  go  —  home." 


CHAPTEE  XXYI 

HOW  HAPPINESS  RETURNED  TO  THE  LAZY  A 

WHEN  Lite  rapped  with  his  knuckles  on  the  door 
of  the  room  where  she  was  waiting,  Jean  stood 
with  her  hands  pressed  tightly  over  her  face,  every 
muscle  rigid  with  the  restraint  she  was  putting  upon 
herself.  Eor  Lite  this  three-day  interval  had  been  too 
full  of  going  here  and  there,  attending  to  the  manifold 
details  of  untangling  the  various  threads  of  their  broken 
life-pattern,  for  him  to  feel  the  suspense  which  Jean 
had  suffered.  She  had  not  done  much.  She  had 
waited.  And  now,  with  Lite  and  her  dad  standing 
outside  the  door,  she  almost  dreaded  the  meeting.  But 
she  took  a  deep  breath  and  walked  to  the  door  and 
opened  it. 

"  Hello,  dad,"  she  cried  with  a  nervous  gaiety. 
"  Give  your  dear  daughter  a  kiss ! "  She  had  not 
meant  to  say  that  at  all. 

Tall  and  gaunt  and  gray  and  old;  lines  etched  deep 
around  his  bitter  mouth;  pale  with  the  tragic  prison 
pallor;  looking  out  at  the  world  with  the  somber  eyes 
of  one  who  has  suffered  most  cruelly, —  Aleck  Douglas 


HOW   HAPPINESS    RETURNS     321 

put  out  his  thin,  shaking  arms  and  held  her  close.  He 
did  not  say  anything  at  all;  and  the  kiss  she  asked  for 
he  laid  softly  upon  her  hair. 

Lite  stood  in  the  doorway  and  looked  at  the  two  of 
them  for  a  moment.  "  I'm  going  down  to  see  about  — 
things.  I'll  be  back  in  a  little  while.  And,  Jean,  will 
you  be  ready  ?  " 

Jean  looked  up  at  him  understandingly,  and  with 
a  certain  shyness  in  her  eyes.  "  If  it's  all  right  with 
dad,"  she  told  him,  "  I'll  be  ready." 

"  Lite's  a  man !  "  Aleck  stated  unsmilingly,  with  a 
trace  of  that  apathy  which  had  hurt  Jean  so  in  the 
warden's  office.  "  I'm  glad  you'll  have  him  to  take  care 
of  you,  Jean." 

So  Lite  closed  the  door  softly  and  went  away  and 
left  those  two  alone. 

In  a  very  few  words  I  can  tell  you  the  rest.  There 
were  a  few  things  to  adjust,  and  a  few  arrangements  to 
make.  The  greatest  adjustment,  perhaps,  was  when 
Jean  begged  off  from  that  contract  with  the  Great 
Western  Company.  Dewitt  did  not  want  to  let  her  go, 
but  he  had  read  a  marked  article  in  a  Montana  paper 
that  Lite  mailed  to  him  in  advance  of  their  return,  and 
he  realized  that  some  things  are  greater  even  than  the 
needs  of  a  motion-picture  company.     He  was  very  nice, 


322      JEAN    OF    THE    LAZY   A 

therefore,  to  Jean.  He  told  her  by  all  means  to  con- 
sider herself  free  to  give  her  time  wholly  to  her  father 

—  and  her  husband.  He  also  congratulated  Lite  in 
terms  that  made  Jean  blush  and  beat  a  hurried  retreat 
from  his  office,  and  that  made  Lite  grin  all  the  way  to 
the  hotel.  So  the  public  lost  Jean  of  the  Lazy  A  al- 
most as  soon  as  it  had  learned  to  welcome  her. 

Then  there  was  Pard,  that  had  to  leave  the  little 
buckskin  and  take  that  nerve-racking  trip  back  to  the 
Lazy  A.  Lite  attended  to  that  with  perfect  calm  and 
a  good  deal  of  inner  elation.  So  that  detail  was  soon 
adjusted. 

At  the  Lazy  A  there  was  a  great  deal  to  do  before  the 
traces  of  its  tragedy  were  wiped  out.  We'll  have  to 
leave  them  doing  that  work,  which  was  only  a  matter 
of  time,  after  all,  and  not  nearly  so  hard  to  accomplish 
as  their  attempts  to  wipe  out  from  Aleck's  soul  the  black 
scar  of  those  three  years.  I  think,  on  the  whole,  we 
shall  leave  them  doing  that  work,  too.  As  much  as 
human  love  and  happiness  could  do  toward  wiping  out 
the  bitterness  they  would  accomplish,  you  may  be  sure, 

—  give  them  time  enough. 


THE  ENB 


STIRRING    STORIES   OF  THE  WEST 

By  B.  M.  BOWER 


The  Flying  U's  Last  Stand  $1.30  net 

What  happened  when  a  crowd  of  farmers  and  school  teachers 
encamped  on  the  grounds  of  Flying  U  Ranch. 

The  Gringos  illustrated.    $1.25  net 

A  picturesque  story  of  California  in  the  days  of  the  Forty-niners 
which  is  "not  only  entertaining,  but  also  impartially 
realistic." — Chicago  Inter-Ocean. 

Good  Indian  illustrated.    $1.25  net 

There  is  excitement  and  action  on  every  page.  ...  A  some- 
what unusual  love  story  runs  through  the  story. — Boston 
Transcript. 

Lonesome  Land  lUustrated.    $1.25  net 

The  author  has  dipped  a  little  more  deeply  into  the  inherent 
tragedies  of  "  raw,  new  lands."  .  .  .  The  pictures  of  the 
region  are  as  true  as  words  can  make  them. — NewYork  Times. 

The  Uphill  Climb  illustrated.    $1.25  net 

If  s  a  cowboy  who  has  an  uphill  fight  in  that  worst  of  all  fights 
—  a  fight  with  himself.  A  deep-toned,  human  note  is  struck 
in  this  narrative. — St.  Louis  Globe-Democrat. 

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A  ringing  tale  full  of  exhilarating  cowboyatmosphere,  abundantly 
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alluring  ranch  life  which  is  fast  vanishing. — Chicago  Tribune. 


Little,  Brown  &  Co.,  Publishers^  Boston 


By  the  author  of  "  The  Broad  Highway  '* 


BELTANE  THE  SMITH 


By  JEFFERY  FARNOL 

A  Romance  of  the  Greenwood 

Illustrated  by  Arthur  E.  Becher.   $1.50  net 


A  novel  more  crowded  with  beauty  and  incident  than  this  new 
romance  of  love  and  adventure  by  JeiFery  Farnol  it  would  be 
difficult  to  find.  Young  Beltane,  growing  up  in  the  care  of 
Ambrose  the  hermit,  versed  in  woodcraft  and  ancient  philos- 
ophies, knows  naught  of  men  and  w  men  and  teeming  cities. 
One  day  a  mysterious  stranger  appears,  presenting  Beltane 
with  a  sword  and  giving  him  daily  lessons  in  sword  play  and 
horsemanship.  From  that  moment  in  the  first  chapter  the  story 
moves  with  a  tremendous  sweep  from  one  adventure  to  another. 

Lady  Helen,  of  Mortaine,  as  she  rides  through  the  greenwood, 
sees  Beltane  singing  of  birds,  flowers,  and  the  sun.  Here  is  the 
first  love  scene,  and  no  living  author  can  write  a  romantic 
chapter  better  than  JefFery  Farnol.  Indeed  the  love  interest  is 
one  of  the  strongest  notes  in  this  remarkable  novel ;  and  while 
Beltane,  in  his  desire  to  rescue  the  suffering  and  afflicted,  is 
made  the  dashing  hero  in  many  a  brawl  and  tourney,  the  power- 
ful love  theme  is  never  once  lost  sight  of.  The  book  teems 
with  character ;  there  is  no  lagging,  no  padding ;  and  there 
Is  a  wealth  of  atmosphere  of  that  period  when  Love  and  Valor 
were  hfe's  mainspring. 

The  story  is  unfolded  with  such  exquisite  Hterary  art,  incident 
is  crowded  upon  incident  in  such  rapid  succession,  the  descrip- 
tions of  nature  are  so  beautiful,  that  one  has  no  hesitation  in 
saying  that  "  Beltane  the  Smith  "  is  by  far  the  greatest  achieve- 
ment of  JefFery  Farnol. 


LITTLE,  BROWN  &  CO.,  Publishers 
34  Beacon  Street,  Boston 


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